Boron and Boron‐Containing Catalysts for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane

Abstract

The front cover artwork for Issue 19/2017 is provided by the Hermans Laboratory at UW-Madison (USA). The image shows the Swedish Chef who, being offered the scientific freedom to explore new recipes, discovered that boron is the most efficient catalystf or the oxidative upgrading of natural gas-derived alkanest oh ighly-desired olefins. It is ag ood remindert o the scientificcommunity that despited ecades of systematic research on ODH, serendipitous breakthroughsare still possible and can lead to new insights and applications. See the Communication itself at https://doi.

Selective Oxidative Cracking of n‐Butane to Light Olefins over Hexagonal Boron Nitride with Limited Formation of COx

“…Because other boron-containing catalysts (B 4 C , WB, NiB) with oxidizeds urface boron speciesc atalyze the ODH of alkanes with the same selectivity as hBN, [25] we envision that these materials will follow the same trends in reactivity observed for hBN when evaluated for their performance in oxidative cracking. Therefore, boron-containing materials are ahighlyversatile platform for selective hydrocarbon oxidations, and new materials can be engineered to meet the needs of new oxidative technology.…”

“…In recent years, our group has shown that hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs), and other boron‐containing catalysts exhibit high selectivity in the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of propane, n ‐butane, and isobutane . In these studies, a variety of spectroscopic techniques such as Raman, IR, and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that after exposure to reaction conditions, these boron‐containing materials become functionalized with oxygen on their surface.…”

“…In recenty ears, our group has shown that hexagonal boron nitride (hBN),b oronn itride nanotubes (BNNTs), and other boron-containingc atalysts exhibit high selectivity in the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of propane, n-butane, and isobutane. [23][24][25] In these studies, av ariety of spectroscopict echniques such as Raman, IR, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that after exposure to reactionc onditions, these boron-containing materials become functionalized with oxygen on their surface. We recently employed solid-state NMR spectroscopy to investigate boron nitride materials and demonstrated that the oxidized phase on used boron nitride catalysts can be denoteda sB 2 (OH) 2x O 3Àx (0 x 2), which contains the active site for ODH.…”

Why Boron Nitride is such a Selective Catalyst for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane

“…Ha bstraction from propane by > BOC leads to the formation of BOH surface species that have been verified experimentally in previous investigations. [1,8,26] These sites, however, are expected to be fairly unreactive and, as such, we investigated active-site regeneration. Starting from the experimental observation that water enhances the observed reaction rate at all studied reaction conditions,w ea ssessed the possibility of water enabling active-site regeneration.…”

It's a Gas: Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane over Boron Nitride Catalysts

“…[4] In fact, it seems good ODH performance can be obtained with any material provided it contains boron. [5,6] Despite the high temperatures required, usually in excess of 500 • C, surprisingly little attention has been paid to gas-phase kinetics. Blank experiments with SiO 2 instead of BN in the reactor show almost no conversion.…”