Chromium oxide supported on ZSM-5 as a novel efficient catalyst for dehydrogenation of propane with CO 2

Abstract

ZSM-5-supported chromium oxide catalysts prepared by an incipient wetness method have been tested for the dehydrogenation of propane to propylene in the presence of carbon dioxide. Several techniques including XRD, N 2 adsorption, SEM, 27Al MAS NMR, XPS, Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance UV–Vis spectroscopy and H 2-TPR were applied to characterize the physicochemical properties of the as-synthesized materials. Catalytic tests show that the chromia catalyst supported on Na-type ZSM-5 with smaller crystal size (ca. 400 nm) exhibits a good catalytic performance, which is much more active than that supported on ZSM-5 with larger crystal size (ca. 2 μm). A high number of Cr(VI) species in the calcined catalyst is crucial for its high catalytic activity in the dehydrogenation of propane to propylene with CO 2.