Robust Low-Temperature Propane Direct Dehydrogenation to Propylene by Microwave Catalysis over Pt-ZnO/S-1 + SiC

Propane direct dehydrogenation (PDH) is an important way for the high-value utilization of propane (C 3 H 8 ). However, the conventional thermal catalytic reaction process is limited by the thermodynamic equilibrium of the strong endothermic reaction, and usually needs to be operated at high temperature, which makes it difficult to balance high conversion and high selectivity. In this study, a new method of microwave catalytic dehydrogenation of C 3 H 8 to propylene (C 3 H 6 ) at low temperature and high efficiency was proposed, and Pt-ZnO/S-1 + SiC microwave catalyst was developed. It was found that microwave significantly improved the conversion and selectivity of the catalyst, and the reaction was carried out efficiently at lower temperatures. Under low temperature microwave catalysis (MCRM) at 450 ° C, the conversion of C 3 H 8 was as high as 46.4%, and the selectivity of C 3 H 6 was as high as 99.3%, which were significantly better than 18.4% conversion and 95.1% selectivity under conventional thermal catalysis (CRM). Further study shows that the microwave action reduces the apparent activation energy of the catalyst from 75.5 kJ·mol −1 under CRM to 48.7 kJ·mol −1 under MCRM. This study provides a new strategy for the low-temperature and efficient conversion of low-carbon alkanes such as C 3 H 8 and provides a new idea for the application of microwave catalytic technology in other catalytic reactions.