Research into Thermocatalytic Propane-to-Propylene Synthesis Using Iron-Containing Composite Carbon Materials

The development of modern thermocatalytic technologies for processing oil and gas raw materials is one of the promising areas for the advancement of chemical production. New highly efficient catalytic systems with the required technical characteristics and long service life play an essential role in solving these issues. The paper focuses on obtaining propylene by selective propane dehydrogenation. In the course of the experiments, composite iron-containing catalysts were synthesized, in which the active component is iron oxide in combination with an inert carbon matrix. FAS activated carbon and carbon nanotubes were used as the matrix. As a result of the synthesis on the catalyst surface it was possible to obtain catalytic centers that transfer electrons by changing the degree of iron oxidation when converting the starting materials into the target reaction products. Findings of research show that the obtained iron-containing catalysts significantly increase the efficiency of the process in comparison with the efficiency of thermal cracking of propane. Thus, the Fe3+/FAS catalyst showed a conversion rate of the initial reagent of 68 % and a propylene selectivity of about 42 %. Further transition to catalytic systems based on singlelayer and double-layer carbon nanotubes modified with iron oxide (Fe3+/CNTI and Fe3+/CNTII) made it possible to obtain propane conversion up to 37--40 % with a decrease in propylene selectivity to 29--30 %. Studies of the service life of the synthesized catalytic systems and the possibility of their regeneration show that, with account for the regeneration, the activity of the catalysts and the main technical characteristics of the propane-to-propylene cracking process remain unchanged for 10 working cycles

Tungsten Oxide-Modified SSZ-13 Zeolite as an Efficient Catalyst for Ethylene-To-Propylene Reaction

Among the zeolitic catalysts for the ethylene-to-propylene (ETP) reaction, the SSZ-13 zeolite shows the highest catalytic activity based on both its suitable pore architecture and tunable acidity. In this study, in order to improve the propylene selectivity further, the surface of the SSZ-13 zeolite was modified with various amounts of tungsten oxide ranging from 1 wt% to 15 wt% via a simple incipient wetness impregnation method. The prepared catalysts were characterized with several analysis techniques, specifically, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Raman spectroscopy, temperature-programmed reduction of hydrogen (H2-TPR), temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia (NH3-TPD), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), and N2 sorption, and their catalytic activities were investigated in a fixed-bed reactor system. The tungsten oxide-modified SSZ-13 catalysts demonstrated significantly improved propylene selectivity and yield compared to the parent H-SSZ-13 catalyst. For the tungsten oxide loading, 10 wt% loading showed the highest propylene yield of 64.9 wt%, which was 6.5 wt% higher than the pristine H-SSZ-13 catalyst. This can be related to not only the milder and decreased strong acid sites but also the diffusion restriction of bulky byproducts, as supported by scanning transmission electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDS) observation.

Highly Active Catalysts for the Dehydration of Isopropanol

Due to the high costs and low selectivity associated with the production of propylene, new routes for its synthesis are being sought. Dehydration has been widely investigated in this field, but, thus far, no study has produced efficient results for isopropanol. Vanadium-zirconia catalysts have been shown to be effective for the dehydration of ethanol. Therefore, we investigated the activity of such catalysts in the dehydration of isopropanol. The catalysts were synthetized on a SBA-15 base, supplemented with zirconia or combined zirconia and vanadium. Tests were conducted in a continuous flow reactor at 150–300 °C. Samples were analyzed using a gas chromatograph. The most active catalyst showed 96% conversion with 100% selectivity to propylene. XRD, SEM and Raman spectroscopy analyses revealed that as the vanadium content increases, the pore size of the catalyst decreases and both isopropanol conversion and propylene selectivity are reduced. Thus, without the addition of vanadium, the Zr-SBA-15 catalyst appears to be suitable for the dehydration of isopropanol to propylene.

Roles of niobium in the dehydrogenation of propane to propylene over a Pt/Nb-modified Al2O3 catalyst

The application of Pt-based catalysts in propane dehydrogenation (PDH) is restricted by low propylene selectivity, metal sintering and carbon deposition.

The guiding role of pre-coking on the coke deposition over ZSM-5 in methanol to propylene

Deposition of carbonaceous compounds was used to improve the propylene selectivity of ZSM-5 by deactivating some acid sites meanwhile maintaining the high activity for methanol conversion. The carbonaceous species of pre-coked samples before and after MTP reactions were investigated by elementary analysis and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that pre-coke formed at low temperature (250°C) was unstable and easy to transform into polyaromatics species at the high reacting temperature, while combining 5% pre-coking process with 95% steam treatment at high temperature (480°C) was effective in inhibiting the formation of coke deposits and presented a significant improvement in the propylene selectivity.