Regeneration of sintered platinum at mild temperature for propane dehydrogenation

Abstract

Pt has been extensively used as active site for propane dehydrogenation (PDH) to propene, a crucial important raw material in chemical industry. Nevertheless, industrial Pt-based catalyst for PDH suffers from sintering at high temperature, which requires a harsh regeneration process in the presence of purified air and hydrochloric acid (HCl) at high temperature (500 °C). Herein, we propose a robust strategy for regenerating sintered Pt-based catalyst with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and HCl at mild temperature (70 °C), where the oxidation with H2O2 and the chlorination with HCl can synergistically weaken Pt − Pt bond to form soluble species, realizing the redispersion of sintered Pt. The current strategy has been successfully implemented on Pt-Ga2O3/S40 and industrial Pt-Sn/Al2O3 for PDH, where the optimal propane conversion reaches > 72 % at a propene selectivity of ∼ 96 % at 600 °C, approaching the thermodynamic equilibrium. Impressively, the universality of the current strategy has been validated by regenerating sintered Pd-, Au-, Ir-, Rh-, and Ru at mild temperature. We believe this work provides a robust and industrially viable strategy for regenerating noble metal-based catalysts, which will capture extensive and immediate attention in chemical industry.