Understanding the mechanism of propane dehydrogenation over coordinatively unsaturated Co-O acid-base pairs and the inhibition effect of trace oxygen

High temperature and a reducing atmosphere are characteristic of propane dehydrogenation (PDH) reaction. Under such condition, the real surface structure of catalysts often differs from that in the ambient environment, particularly for CoOx species with multiple valence states and coordination. Here, a combination of in situ/operando Raman spectroscopy, in situ UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that coordinatively unsaturated Co-O (Cocu-O) acid-base pairs via lattice oxygen consumption are the PDH active sites of CoOx/Al2O3 catalysts. This highly dispersed Cocu-O species exhibit a C3H6 formation rate and C3H6 selectivity as high as 2 mmol‧gcat−1‧min−1 and 95 %, respectively, which is comparable to most state-of-the-art CoOx-based catalysts. However, industrial C3H8 raw gases typically contain 10–1000 ppm oxygen gas, and the complete eliminating oxygen increases costs. PDH catalytic performance of CoOx/Al2O3 catalysts is sensitive to the extremely low concentration of oxygen gas and is significantly inhibited by it. The fundamental reason is that the concentration of Cocu active sites is determined by the competitive reaction between the filling of trace oxygen on oxygen vacancies and lattice oxygen consumption. The reaction rate of the former is significantly higher than that of the latter. The higher reducibility of CoOx species leads to relatively weaken inhibition of trace oxygen for PDH activity. The oxygen content in the propane feed gas is a non-negligible factor in the development of new Co-based PDH catalysts, especially for their industrial applications.