Studies on ethylbenzene dehydrogenation with CO2 as soft oxidant over Co3O4/COK-12 catalysts

Abstract

Oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene has been studied over Co3O4 supported on mesoporous silica (COK-12) with CO2 as soft oxidant in a fixed bed reactor at atmospheric pressure in the temperature range of 723 to 923K. While COK-12 has been prepared by self-assembly method using long chain ionic surfactant i.e., P123 as template, cobalt oxide supported on COK-12 catalysts with variable Co content have been synthesised by simple wet impregnation technique. All the catalysts were characterized by N2 adsorption - desorption, XRD, FT-IR, TPR, UV-Vis and XPS techniques. XRD and pore size distribution studies indicate the intactness of mesoporous structure of SiO2 even after incorporation of Co3O4. Presence of Co3O4 crystallites were observed beyond 5 wt% Co loading. High ethylbenzene conversion and stable styrene yields have been observed over 3% Co3O4/COK-12 catalyst due to the presence of large number of active Co3O4 catalytic sites. Enhancement in the activity has been observed with CO2 as soft oxidant than with N2 as diluent. This is because of the fact that the liberated H2 reacts with CO2 in the form of reverse water gas shift reaction.