Dehydrogenation of propan-2-ol on zinc oxide powders as a structure-insensitive reaction

Abstract

The dehydrogenation of propan-2-ol over zinc oxides has been studied in the 473–548 K temperature range. These oxides show oriented textures. At low temperatures and conversions (α < 6–7%), the reaction was zero order in alcohol pressure. The activity per unit area increased by a factor of four with respect to the ZnO origin. From crystallographic data and on the assumption that every surface zinc ion is an active centre, the turnover frequency has been calculated. The essentially constant value obtained shows that the dehydrogenation of propan-2-ol over zinc oxides must be considered as a structure-insensitive reaction. Furthermore, the turnover frequency is of the same order of magnitude as that observed for the dehydrogenation of butan-2-ol on supported-copper catalysts.