TG study on real role of active carbon support in propane dehydrogenation with CO2

Active carbon was used as a support for chromium(III) oxide phase. The synthesized materials appeared to be very active catalysts of the propane dehydrogenation in the presence of CO2. An influence of the Cr content on the catalytic activity and selectivity was observed. The best results were achieved over the sample containing about 5 wt.% of Cr. A negative effect of activity decay with time-on-stream was found. The reasons of the observed deactivation were explained using the thermal analysis method. A behavior of the fresh and used samples was tested in a temperature range of 25–1000 °C in different atmospheres (inert gas, air or CO2). It was found that the catalytic runs resulted in a partial decomposition of surface O-containing groups, which together with CrOx species play a role of active centers. Moreover, a formation of inactive carbonaceous deposit on the catalyst surface was observed.