Effect of metal–acid balance and textual modifications on hydroisomerization catalysts for n-alkanes with different chain length: A mini-review

• Hydroisomerization of short and long chain n-alkanes are compared and reviewed. • Mechanism of hydroisomerization and side reaction was detailly introduced. • Diffusion plays an important role in the hydroisomerization of long chain n-alkanes. • Emerging problems in hydroisomerization was discussed. Hydroisomerization of n-alkanes has become an essential route for producing high quality fossil fuels and lubricants meeting the state-of-art regulations. The hydroisomerization of light alkanes, i.e. , pentane and hexane, has been well developed. However, this process for heavier n-alkanes still has a large room for improvement. Therefore, the purpose of the present work is to review similarities and differences among the hydroisomerization of n-alkanes with different chain length. Attention has been paid on the effect of metal–acid balance and textual modifications on the bifunctional catalysts. Besides, the mechanism of hydroisomerization was also discussed in detail. At last, conclusions and prospects for the hydroisomerization of long-chain n-alkanes have been made. This review could help to understand difficulties in enhancing isomers yield during the hydroisomerization process and could benefit new researchers in this field by relating the state-of-art researches to the reaction mechanism.