Manufacture of lower aromatic compounds

In the manufacture of gasoline and concurrent production of chemical grade aromatic compounds of eight or less carbon atoms by catalytic reforming of naphtha and using part of the reformate for each purpose, the improvement resulting in higher quality gasoline of lower "heavy end" content, which comprises fractionating a catalytic reformate to provide a light reformate containing most of the C.sub.8 and lighter components of the reformate and a heavy reformate which contains no more than 20 weight percent of xylenes, blending said light reformate with other motor fuel components to provide a finished gasoline, contacting said heavy reformate with a catalyst characterized by an effective amount of type ZSM-5 zeolite, zeolite ZSM-12 or zeolite ZSM-21 under conditions to remove from alkyl aromatics side chain alkyl groups of greater than one carbon atom and produce therefrom aliphatic hydrocarbons containing more carbon atoms than the side chains so removed and to produce more xylenes then contained in said heavy reformate and to also produce benzene and toluene, said conditions being about 550.degree. to about 1000.degree.F., about 100 to about 2000 pounds per square inch, about 0.5 to 10 mols of hydrogen per mol of hydrocarbon and a weight hourly space velocity between about 0.1 and about 200 unit weights of hydrocarbon per unit weight of said zeolite in the catalyst per hour, and recovering from the product of contacting said heavy reformate with said catalyst aliphatic hydrocarbons having a greater number of carbon atoms than the side chains of alkyl aromatics in said heavy reformate and at least one aromatic hydrocarbon of eight or less carbon atoms in an amount greater than quantity of said aromatic hydrocarbon in said heavy reformate.