Influence of operating conditions, Si/Al ratio and doping of zinc on Pt-Sn/ZSM-5 catalyst for propane dehydrogenation to propene

Abstract

The direct catalytic dehydrogenation of propane to propene is an important route to enhance propene production. In the present experimentation the focus was to investigate the influence of incipient operating conditions, Si/Al ratio of zeolite support and effect of zinc doping on Pt-Sn/ZSM-5 catalyst performance. The catalysts were extensively investigated by reaction tests in a continuous plug-flow quartz micro-reactor. The experimental data shows that the manipulation of operating parameters significantly improves the reaction performance, while huge dynamicity is observed in product distribution. Reaction temperature, 600 °C is found to be most suitable, while increasing the weight hourly space velocity (WHSV), propene selectivity improves at the expense of lower conversion. The OPE was drawn to observe overall reaction network. It was found that the acidity of zeolitic support plays a more important role in achieving desired product selectivity than additional metallic content. Accordingly, the Si/Al ratio of the ZSM-5 zeolite the pro- pene selectivity was enhanced, leading to remarkable improvement in the total olefins selectivity which was remarkably improved owing to a suppression of secondary reactions. At Si/Al ratio 300, the selectivity of propene and total olefins becomes stable at 73% and 90% respectively. The doping of Zn on Pt-Sn/ZSM-5 improves only propene selectivity, but is severely affected by quick deactivation.