A platinum/alumina catalyst was sintered in oxygen and hydrogen atmospheres using two metal loadings of the catalyst: 0.3% Pt and 0.6% Pt. After sintering, the aromatization selectivity was investigated with the reforming of n-heptane as the model reaction at a temperature of 500• C and a pressure of 391.8 kPa. The primary products of n-heptane reforming on the fresh platinum catalysts were methane and toluene, with subsequent conversion of benzene from toluene demethylation. To induce sintering, the catalysts were treated with oxygen at a flow rate of 60 mL min −1 , pressure of 195.9 kPa and temperatures between 500 and 800• C. The 0.3% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst exhibited enhanced aromatization selectivity at various sintering temperatures while the 0.6% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst was inherently hydrogenolytic. The fact that aromatization was absent on the 0.6% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst was attributed to the presence of surface structures with dimensionality between two and three as opposed to essentially 2-D structures on the 0.3% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst surface. On the 0.3% Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst, the reaction product ranged from only toluene at a 500• C sintering temperature to predominantly cracked product at a sintering temperature of 650 • C and no reaction at 800• C. For sintering at about 650 • C, subsequent conversion of n-heptane was complete and dropped thereafter. The turnover number was observed to change from 0.07 to 2.26 s −1 as the dispersion changed from 0.33 to 0.09. The Koros-Nowark (K-N) test was used to check for the presence of internal diffusional incursions and Boudart's criterion was used for structural sensitivity determination. The K-N test indicated the absence of diffusional resistances while n-heptane reforming was found to be structure sensitive on the Pt/Al 2 O 3 catalyst.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.