Robust low-temperature microwave catalytic direct dehydrogenation of propane to propylene over Pt-Co/SiBeta+SiC

Abstract

Propane direct dehydrogenation (PDH) is an important way to prepare propylene (C3H6). However, the conventional thermal catalytic process often has the problems of high reaction temperature and side reactions such as carbon deposition, which makes it difficult to balance the conversion of C3H8 and the selectivity of C3H6. In this work, a new method for direct dehydrogenation of low-temperature and high-efficiency propane (C3H8) to C3H6 by microwave catalysis was proposed, and a Pt-Co/SiBeta+SiC microwave catalyst was developed. The results showed that microwave catalysis significantly improved the C3H8 conversion and C3H6 selectivity of the catalyst, and effectively reduced the reaction temperature. Under 450 °C lowtemperature microwave catalysis (MCRM), the initial conversion of C3H8 was as high as 50.4%, and the initial selectivity of C3H6 was as high as 97.2%. Both are significantly better than the 5.9% initial conversion and 95.6% initial selectivity under conventional thermal catalysis (CRM). It was further found that the microwave irradiation significantly reduced the apparent activation energy of the catalyst from 164.4 kJ•mol -1 under CRM to 68.4 kJ•mol -1 under MCRM. This work provides a new idea for the development of low-temperature and high-efficiency PDH catalytic system, and shows the application potential of microwave catalysis in light hydrocarbon conversion.