Alkanes, dehydrogenation other supports

Nafta reforming and alkane dehydrogenation processes are directly connected on platinum alumina based catalysts. The stability and selectivity requirements for industrial purposes induced the addition of a second metal like Sn, Ge or Re. In fact, these promoters coupled to other acidity controllers added on the support enhanced the catalytic efficiency [1-3]... 

Supported VO, catalysts show good catalytic performance in both oxidation and reduction reactions for example, they are among the most active and selective simple metal oxides for dehydrogenation and oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes. The possibiUty of using oxide systems other than chromia is being... 

Supported metal clusters play an important role in nanoscience and nanotechnology for a variety of reasons [1-6]. Yet, the most immediate applications are related to catalysis. The heterogeneous catalyst, installed in automobiles to reduce the amount of harmful car exhaust, is quite typical it consists of a monolithic backbone covered internally with a porous ceramic material like alumina. Small particles of noble metals such as palladium, platinum, and rhodium are deposited on the surface of the ceramic. Other pertinent examples are transition metal clusters and atomic species in zeolites which may react even with such inert compounds as saturated hydrocarbons activating their catalytic transformations [7-9]. Dehydrogenation of alkanes to the alkenes is an important initial step in the transformation of ethane or propane to aromatics [8-11]. This conversion via nonoxidative routes augments the type of feedstocks available for the synthesis of these valuable products. 

The catalytic dehydrogenation of lower alkanes was first developed more than fifty years ago using chromia/alumina systems [1]. Although there has been development of new processes [2 - 6], the catalyst technology has tended to remain with either modified chromia/alumina or modified platinum/alumina catalysts. Therefore it seemed appropriate to re-examine the possibility of using oxide systems other than chromia to effect the alkane to alkene transition. Supported vanadium pentoxide has been extensively studied for the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane to propene [7-10] but rarely for the direct dehydrogenation reaction [6]. 

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