Isolated boron in zeolite for oxidative dehydrogenation of propane.

Zhou, Hang; Yi, Xianfeng; Hui, Yu; Wang, Liang; Chen, Wei; Qin, Yucai; Wang, Ming; Ma, Jiabi et al. · Science · 2021

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODHP) is a key technology for producing propene from shale gas, but conventional metal oxide catalysts are prone to overoxidation to form valueless CO <i><sub>x</sub></i> Boron-based catalysts were recently found to be selective for this reaction, and B-O-B oligomers are generally regarded as active centers. We show here that the isolated boron in a zeolite framework without such oligomers exhibits high activity and selectivity for ODHP, which also hinders full hydrolysis for boron leaching in a humid atmosphere because of the B-O-SiO <i><sub>x</sub></i> linkage, achieving superior durability in a long-period test. Furthermore, we demonstrate an isolated boron with a -B[OH…O(H)-Si]<sub>2</sub> structure in borosilicate zeolite as the active center, which enables the activation of oxygen and a carbon-hydrogen bond to catalyze the ODHP.