Preparation of highly efficient alkane dehydrogenation
catalysts
working at high temperatures is still a great challenge due to the
sintering property of metal components under reducing atmospheres.
To improve the thermal stability of cobalt on the support, we propose
a confinement strategy using ceria nanoislands located on the silicalite-1
support, which improves the resistance to sintering of cobalt species.
Unlike the coke-coated cobalt particles and carbon nanotubes observed
on 1Co/S-1, ceria nanoislands on 1Co6CeO
x
/S-1 restrain the overaggregation of metallic cobalt, preventing
the occurrence of side reactions such as cracking and coking induced
by large metallic cobalt particles. Comprehensive analysis results
show that active lattice oxygen species within ceria participate in
the oxidative dehydrogenation reaction in the initial stage of the
reaction, boosting the deep dehydrogenation of n-butane
to 1,3-C4H6. During the transition from Ce(IV)
to Ce(III), the depletion of active lattice oxygen lowers oxidative
dehydrogenation activity, triggering the reduction of cobalt species
and shifting the reaction pathway from oxidative dehydrogenation to
direct dehydrogenation. The proposed confinement strategy using ceria
nanoislands on silicalite-1 support offers a promising solution to
the challenge of sintering in metal catalysts.