Fine Tuning the Morphology of Spinel as Ultra‐Stable Catalyst Support in Propane Dehydrogenation

Abstract

AbstractRecently, the propane dehydrogenation (PDH) to propylene has become one of the most promising and attractive techniques for the production of propylene because the success of the large‐scale exploitation of shale gas can supply an abundance of cheap propane for this process. Al2O3 is usually used as a support for PtSn catalysts to withstand the harsh reaction environment in the PDH process. However, due to the formation of coke and thermal agglomeration of metal particles, the PtSn catalyst suffers severe deactivation. Therefore, spinel supports are rationally designed with different morphologies (sphere, sheet, and rod) to stabilize the PtSn catalyst in the PDH. Specifically, the rod‐like spinel support exhibits a larger pore size and suitable interaction with PtSn nanoparticles shows an excellent C3H8 conversion rate of 43.2% and a C3H6 selectivity of 95.0% with an extremely low deactivation rate of 0.005 h−1 for the cycle test, standing as one of the best PDH catalysts reported to date and outperforming the commercial PtSn/Al2O3 catalysts. Besides, this catalyst is compatible with the industrial process to achieve scalable production.