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Indexed by:Journal Papers

Date of Publication:2020-03-21

Journal:CATALYSIS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Included Journals:SCIE

Volume:10

Issue:6

Page Number:1809-1815

ISSN No.:2044-4753

Abstract:Oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene featured with a non-equilibrium-limit is an alternative to the direct dehydrogenation process, but often exhibits low styrene selectivity caused by deep-oxidation over metal oxide catalysts. Herein, we report a nonmetallic BN embedded graphitic carbon catalyst which was synthesized by a one-step co-pyrolysis method using boric acid, urea and ammonium iron citrate as the reactants. The obtained catalyst exhibits a high styrene selectivity of 94%. The existence of abundant carbonyl groups and BO species could correspondingly contribute more reaction sites and extra oxygen adsorption sites. A higher styrene formation rate of 5.8 mmol g(cat)(-1) h(-1) is thus achieved for our BN embedded graphitic carbon catalyst, whereas this value is 3.4 mmol g(cat)(-1) h(-1) for sole carbon nanotubes and 0.2 mmol g(cat)(-1) h(-1) for BN. Such promoted reactivity for oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene is derived from the synergetic and collaborative effect of the nonmetallic BN and graphitic carbon catalyst.