Why am I getting higher conversion values of isopropanol dehydration over a zeolite catalyst than n-propanol dehydration?
In a typical acid-catalyzed dehydration, the reaction goes by an SN1 mechanism, and the rate-limiting step is
$$\ce{R-OH2+ -&gt; R+ + H2O}$$
The rate of this step is typically a function of the stability of the cation product. In your case, the secondary cation formed from isopropanol is more stable than the primary cation formed from n-propanol.
I'm using &quot;typical&quot; and &quot;typically&quot; here, because these are results from homogeneous reactions, and it sounds like you are doing heterogeneous catalysis with a solid zeolite. That can certainly change the reaction behavior, but in your case it appears that the zeolite is not selective for one molecule over the other, and the trend is the same as what is observed for homogeneous systems.