Physicochemical Stabilization of Pt against Sintering for a Dehydrogenation Catalyst with High Activity, Selectivity, and Durability

Abstract

Suppressing irreversible catalyst deactivation is critical in heterogeneous catalysis. In particular, deactivation via sintering of active sites is a significant issue for reactions involving harsh reaction/regeneration conditions. In this work, we developed a PtGa/γ-Al2O3 alkane dehydrogenation catalyst with exceptionally high activity, selectivity, and long-term stability by markedly suppressing Pt sintering under harsh conditions (reaction/regeneration at >823 K). To stabilize Pt, physical and chemical stabilization strategies were synergistically combined. For the former, Pt was introduced during the synthesis of γ-Al2O3 via sol–gel chemistry, which can increase the interfacial contact between Pt and γ-Al2O3 due to the partial entrapment of Pt in γ-Al2O3. For the latter, atomically dispersed Ce was doped on γ-Al2O3, which can stabilize Pt via strong Pt–O–Ce interactions. Because of effective Pt stabilization, the catalyst showed remarkably steady activity and selectivity behaviors over the repeated re...