Phosphorus-doped h-boron nitride as an efficient metal-free catalyst for direct dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene

Abstract

Direct dehydrogenation (DDH) of ethylbenzene to styrene catalyzed by metal-free materials is one of the most challenging topics in the chemical industry. We demonstrate that phosphorus-doped h-boron nitride (PBN) exhibits...

Revealing the Effect of Mass Transfer on Direct Dehydrogenation of Ethylbenzene Catalyzed by Phosphorous‐doped Boron Nitride: Comparative Study

“…In our recent work, phosphorus-doped h-boron nitride (PBN) exhibited an outstanding catalytic performance for DDH of ethylbenzene with N 2 P=O and N 3 PÀ OH as active sites. [21] Furthermore, it is known that ethylbenzene belongs to the macromolecular reactant, therefore we expect that mass transfer factors will play an important role in DDH of ethylbenzene. For two-dimensional (2D) catalysts, the actives sites are distributed on the inner pores and the surface of single layer.…”

In situ growth of phosphorus-doped boron nitride on commercial alumina as a robust catalyst for direct dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene

“…3f). 26,39 The bonding modes of the P species on PBN@Al 2 O 3 (N) are the same as those on the PBN-1.2 powder, which have been previously proved to be the active sites of the DDH of ethylbenzene to styrene. Then, we further analyzed the B 1s and Al 2p spectra of B@Al 2 O 3 (N) and PBN@Al 2 O 3 (N).…”

“…It should be noted that the strong signal of Al 2 O 3 overlaps with the peaks of other B and P species between 800 and 1100 cm −1 . 26 Besides, in the HRTEM image and the elemental mapping of PBN@Al 2 O 3 (N) (Fig. S3†), the macroporous structure of Al 2 O 3 can be clearly observed, also justifying the thin coating of the PBN layers.…”

“…The catalytic performance test is the same as in our previous work. 26 Typically, 2 mL of catalyst with a particle size of 20–40 mesh was loaded into a silica glass tube (8 mm O.D.) with quartz wool plugs at both sides, and then heated to 600 °C at a heating rate of 4 °C min −1 and kept for 30 min in N 2 to pretreat the catalyst.…”

“…23–25 Inspired by the past brilliant achievement on metal-free catalysis, in our recent work, we proved the phosphorus-doped h-boron nitride material (PBN) to be an efficient metal-free catalyst for the DDH of ethylbenzene with N 2 PO and N 3 P–OH as active sites. 26 However, the application shortcomings of two-dimensional nanomaterials, including high pressure drop and difficult recycling in a fixed-bed reactor, are still required to be properly solved, via in situ growth or post-loading on a carrier simultaneously keeping the original performance.…”