Platinum-rhenium catalysts hydrogen

Platinum-rhenium catalysts have been reduced in one atmosphere of flowing hydrogen and then examined, without exposure to the atmosphere, by ESCA. The spectra indicate that the Group VIII metal is present in a metallic state in the reduced catalyst and that the majority of the rhenium is present in a valence state higher than Re(0). 

Although the mechanism of the platinum catalysis is by no means completely understood, chemists do know a lot about how it works. It is an example of a dual catalyst platinum metal on an alumina support. Platinum, a transition metal, is one of many metals known for its hydrogenation and dehydrogenation catalytic effects. Recently bimetallic platinum/rhenium catalysts are now the industry standard because they are more stable and have higher activity than platinum alone. Alumina is a good Lewis acid and as such easily isomerizes one carbocation to another through methyl shifts. 

Bimetallic platinum-rhenium catalysts can be prepared in aqueous acid medium, under hydrogen flow, by a redox reaction between hydrogen activated on a parent platinum-alumina catalyst and the perrhenate ion ReO4. ... 

In considering the nature of platinum-rhenium catalysts, we begin with a comparison of the chemisorption properties of alumina-supported rhenium, platinum, and platinum-rhenium catalysts (40). Data on the chemisorption of carbon monoxide and hydrogen at room temperature are given in Table 4.4 for catalysts with platinum and/or rhenium contents in the range of interest for reforming applications. 

The data on the catalyst containing rhenium alone indicate signficant chemisorption of carbon monoxide, but no chemisorption of hydrogen. As expected, the platinum catalyst chemisorbs both carbon monoxide and hydrogen, and the values of CO/M and H/M are nearly equal. The platinum-rhenium catalyst exhibits a value of CO/M about twice as high as the value of H/M. This result approximates what one would expect if hydrogen chemisorbed on only the platinum component of the catalyst. While this chemisorption behavior is consistent with the possibility that the platinum and rhenium are present as two separate entities in the catalyst, they do not rule out the possibility that bimetallic clusters of platinum and rhenium are present. 

The physical and chemical nature of the rhenium in platinum-rhenium catalysts has been considered by a number of investigators. Johnson and Leroy (63) concluded that the rhenium is present as a highly dispersed oxide at typical reforming conditions. They studied a series of alumina-supported platinum-rhenium catalysts with platinum contents ranging from 0.31 to 0.66 wt% and rhenium contents ranging from 0.20 to 1.18 wt%. Their conclusions were based on measurements of hydrogen consumption during reduction of the catalysts at 482°C and on X-ray diffraction studies of the metal component of the catalyst after the alumina had been leached from the catalyst by treatment with a solution of fluoboric acid. 

The catalysts were prepared by contacting alumina with aqueous solutions of chloroplatinic acid and ammonium perrhenate. The consumption of hydrogen during reduction corresponded to complete reduction of platinum from the +4 oxidation state to the metal and of rhenium from the +7 to the +4 state. The X-ray diffraction data on the metal residue from the leached catalysts showed no evidence for the presence of rhenium metal or a platinum-rhenium alloy. Most of the rhenium was found in the leaching solution. Finally, the authors stated that data from an electron spin resonance experiment on one of the reduced platinum-rhenium catalysts were consistent with their conclusion that the rhenium was present in the +4 state. 

For catalysts that were simply dried in air at 110°C after impregnation of the alumina with H2PtClfe and Re207, it was concluded that a platinum-rhenium alloy formed on reduction. This conclusion was based on the observation that the presence of platinum accelerated the reduction of oxygen chemisorbed on the rhenium and on results showing that the frequencies of the infrared absorption bands of carbon monoxide adsorbed on platinum and rhenium sites in platinum-rhenium catalysts were different from those found with catalysts containing only platinum or rhenium. However, for catalysts calcined in air at 500°C prior to reduction in hydrogen, it was concluded that the platinum exhibited much less interaction with the rhenium (66,71). 

As a result of the higher yields of methane and ethane in the run on the platinum-iridium catalyst, the hydrogen concentration in the recycle gas stream was lower than in the run on the platinum-rhenium catalyst. Consequently, the hydrogen partial pressure at the reactor inlet was also lower. The average hydrogen partial pressures were 15.1 and 16.5 atm, respectively, for the runs on the platinum-iridium and platinum-rhenium catalysts. The difference in hydrogen partial pressure at a fixed total pressure is a consequence of the different compositions of the gaseous products, which, in turn, reflect... 

The composition of a reforming catalyst is dictated by the composition of the feedstock and the desired reformate. The catalysts used are principally platinum or platinum—rhenium on an alumina base. The purpose of platinum on the catalyst is to promote dehydrogenation and hydrogenation reactions. Nonplatinum catalysts are used in regenerative processes for feedstocks containing sulfur, although pretreatment (hydrodesulfurization) may permit platinum catalysts to be employed. 

Hydrogenation. Hydrogenation is one of the oldest and most widely used appHcations for supported catalysts, and much has been written in this field (55—57). Metals useflil in hydrogenation include cobalt, copper, nickel, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, mthenium, and silver, and there are numerous catalysts available for various specific appHcations. Most hydrogenation catalysts rely on extremely fine dispersions of the active metal on activated carbon, alumina, siHca-alumina, 2eoHtes, kieselguhr, or inert salts, such as barium sulfate. 

Reforming is the conversion primarily of naphthenes and alkanes to aromatics, but other reactions also occur under commercial conditions. Platinum or platinum/rhenium are the hydrogenation/ dehydrogenation component of the catalyst and alumina is the acid component responsible for skeletal rearrangements. 

A platinum-rhenium composite catalyst supported on the granular activated carbon (Pt-Re/C, 5 wt-Pt%, mixed molar ratio of Pt/Re = 2) [10] was prepared by a "dry-migration method" [33,34] as follows (1) The Pt/C catalyst prepared earlier (5 wt-metal%) was evacuated at 180°C for 1 h (2) The mixture (molar ratio of Pt/Re = 2) of the Pt/C catalyst and a cyclopentadienylrhenium tricarbonyl complex (Re(Cp)(CO)3) were stirred under nitrogen atmosphere at room temperature for 1 h and then heated at 100° for 1 h, with the temperature kept at a constant (3) This mixture was further stirred under hydrogen atmosphere at 240°C for 3 h and finally (4) the Pt-Re/C composite catalyst was evacuated at 180°C for 1 h. A platinum-tungsten composite catalyst supported on the granular activated carbon (Pt-W/C, 5 wt-Pt%, mixed molar ratio of Pt/W = 1) [5,6] was also prepared similarly by the dry-migration method. All the catalysts were evacuated inside the reactor at 150°C for 1 h before use. 

A typical process flow diagram of a catalytic reformer is shown in Figure 3.17. Desulfurized naphtha is heated in feed-effluent exchangers and then passed to a fired heater, where it is heated to 850 to 1,000° F (455 to 540° C) at 500 psia (3,450 kPa) in a series of reactors and fired heaters. In the reactors, the hydrocarbon and hydrogen are passed over a catalyst (often platinum/rhenium based) to produce rearranged molecules, which are primarily aromatics with some isoparaffins. The reactor effluent is cooled by exchange and then passed to a separator vessel. The gas from the separator is recycled to the reactors. The liquid is fed to a fractionator. 

Hydrogenation Copper chromite (Lazier catalyst). Copper chromium oxide (Adkins catalyst). Lindlar catalyst (see also Lithium ethoxyacetylide, Malealdehyde, Nickel boride). Nickel catalysts. Palladium catalysts. Palladium hydroxide on carbon. Perchloric acid (promoter). Platinum catalysts. Raney catalysts, Rhenium catalysts. Rhodium catalysts. Stannous chloride. Tributylborane. Trifluoroicetic acid, Tris (triphenylphosphine)chlororhodium. 

The influence of the support is undoubted and spillover was further confirmed by the excess of hydrogen chemisorbed by a mechanical mixture of unsupported alloy and TJ-A1203 above that calculated from the known values for the separate components. It was also observed that the chemisorption was slower on the supported than on the unsupported metal and that the greater part of the adsorbate was held reversibly no comment could be made on the possible mediation by traces of water. On the other hand, spillover from platinum-rhenium onto alumina appears to be inhibited for ratios Re/(Pt Re) > 0.6. In an infrared investigation of isocyanate complexes formed between nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, on the surface of rhodium-titania and rhodium-silica catalysts, it seems that the number of complexes exceeded the number of rhodium surface atoms.The supports have a pronounced effect on the location of the isocyanate bond and on the stability of the complexes, with some suggestion of spillover. 

The reaction rates were determined at low conversion levels (7-12%) in an attempt to minimize the effects of secondary reactions. The inlet stream to the reactor contained five moles of hydrogen per mole of n-heptane. The n-heptane contained 0.5 ppm sulfur, and the reaction rates were determined after 40 hours on stream. The catalysts contained 0.9 wt% chlorine as charged. Prior to the runs the catalysts were contacted with an H2S-containing gas until H2S was detected at the reactor outlet (34). This step is routinely employed with platinum-rhenium and platinum-iridium catalysts to suppress hydrogenolysis activity (33). 

Rhenium sulfides are effective catalysts for hydrogenation of organic substances and they have the advantage over heterogeneous platinum metal catalysts in that they are not poisoned by sulfur compounds.811 An inorganic reduction that they catalyze is that of NO to N20 at 100°.8b... 

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