A highly selective FER-based catalyst to produce n-butenes from isobutanol.

• The use of FER as catalyst for the dehydration of iso-butanol results in an excellent selectivity for n-butenes. • The external Brønsted acid sites function as isobutanol dehydration active sites. • High external Brønsted acidity improves selectivity to n-butenes. • Use of in-situ and operando characterisation toolboxes allowed identifying the active sites. The conversion of isobutanol to light olefins over zeolites was investigated by IR operando spectroscopy. FER zeolites showed a surprisingly high selectivity for the direct conversion of iso-butanol to linear butenes, hence catalyzing dehydration and skeletal isomerization in one step. As a fundamental understanding of the separate reactions is required to design superior catalysts, an in-situ and operando FT-IR mechanistic study of the reaction was carried out. The spectroscopic data, the derived species participating and their respective role are analyzed using chemometric (PCA and MCR-ALS) tools. We highlighted the role played by the external acid sites and the requirement of a specific distance between these sites to ensure the n-butene selectivity and point that the internal Brønsted acidity has an adverse effect on the catalyst stability. Moreover, there is no correlation between the carbon species formed on the surface and the exceptional selectivity towards n-butenes, allowing to exclude a "carbon pool" mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]