Effects of the state of Co species in Co/Al2O3 catalysts on the catalytic performance of propane dehydrogenation

In this paper, the Co/Al2O3 catalyst was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation method, and different post treatment methods were used to promote its dehydrogenation properties. Interestingly, we found that Co/Al2O3 catalysts with different post treatment protocols exhibited totally different catalytic behaviors in propane dehydrogenation. Fresh catalyst showed an induction period and was highly active for pyrolysis and coking at 10-30 min of reaction. The pre-reduction led to complete pyrolysis and coking at the beginning of reaction. However, the re-oxidation treatment gave a high selectivity (similar to 93.0%) to propylene at the whole process. XRD, H-2-TPR, XPS, TEM and hydrogen chemisorption investigations showed that the post treatment has a great impact on the state of cobalt species and the performance of propane dehydrogenation over Co/Al2O3 catalysts. Specifically, the poorly dispersed metal Co led to pyrolysis and coking, while highly dispersed metal Co were responsible for the dehydrogenation of propane. The large Co3O4 particles (D-Fresh = 33.68 nm) result in the large metal Co grains (DPre-reduced = 24.90 nm) after the reduction or reaction process. While during the re-oxidization process, the surface metal Co was re-oxidized in a mild environment and got re-dispersion (DRe-oxidized = 6.07 nm). And the surface cobalt oxides layer is more readily to be reduced to metal Co during the reaction thus leading to the shortened induction period. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.