Integration of Pt/Fe-silicalite-1 and acidic zeolite as a bifunctional catalyst for boosting ethane dehydroaromatization

Ethane dehydrogenation to aromatics (EDA) is one of the most promising routes to produce aromatics. Herein, the tandem of dehydrogenation component and acidic zeolite are prepared and investigated for EDA. Pt/Fe-S-1 coupled with ZSM-5 of Si/Al of 14 via mixing homogeneously shows excellent EDA performance with 54.0% ethane conversion, 61.5% aromatics selectivity as well as a deactivation rate constant of 0.00010 h −1 . According to catalysts characterizations and controlled experiments, it is confirmed the highly dispersed positive Pt δ + species around Fe species over Pt/Fe-S-1 is the active sites for ethane dehydrogenation to ethylene and subsequent naphthenes dehydrogenation to aromatics, Brønsted acid sites of ZSM-5 and MFI pore are responsible for ethylene oligomerization and cyclization to naphthenes and further naphthenes dehydrogenation to aromatics. The short spatial space between dehydrogenation active sites and acid sites is beneficial for EDA. And the ethylene generation rate is the rate-determining step of EDA.