Objective
The objective of the project is to elucidate the mechanism and kinetics of the oxidehydrogenation (OXD) of isobutane to isobutene as a tool to develop new, selective catalysts for this reaction. To attain high selectivity in this process is very desirable from the point of view of environmental protection from harmful effluents and saving irreplaceable natural resources. The demand for light olefins and their derivatives (specially for isobutene) is increasing steadily and the present capacity might become insufficient to meet this demand. Activation of the low cost paraffins could be the way to reach this goal. The oxidative route, OXD, could overcome the limitations (energy- intensive) and drawbacks (deactivation, cracking) of conventional dehydrogenation processes. However the selectivity of these reactions is not high enough now for a practical application. Therefore to increase the selectivity of such processes has a general importance. Despite of its great applied interest, the mechanism and kinetics of OXD is not well-known, and the OXD of isobutane has been little studied. 9To reach its objective the project will include: a) preparation and physico-chemical characterization of suitable catalysts, based on molybdates, and its screening to determine the most useful compositions; b) elucidation of mechanism, by studying the three main influencing factors: the activation of C-H bonds, the activation of oxygen and its insertion in the products, the breaking of C-C bonds in the course of formation of oxidative degradation products; c) correlation of these reaction steps with catalyst properties. Italy) and 3 from NIS (Russia and Azerbaijan) with the aim of joining their complementary expertises: one dealing with the development of catalysts in selective catalytic oxidations, and the other dealing with the mechanistic and kinetic aspects of oxidation reactions. The technical approach looks for obtaining a complete description of the mechanism of the reaction and of the catalyst properties relevant to its performance, in order to correlate reactivity to structural features as a tool for a better design of the catalyst. Thus, studies of the reaction kinetics in steady- and unsteady regimes, kinetics of catalyst deactivation under reaction conditions, influence of reaction medium, surface compounds by IR-spectroscopy, isotopic H-D exchange in reaction systems, isotopic effects, isotopic O16-O18 exchange, oxygen label insertion into oxidation products, and possible carbonaceous deposits on catalyst surface during the course of reaction will be carried out. Then, a developed complex strategy and software as new approach to computation of experimental results will be used to describe kinetic and mechanistic data. In parallel, the catalysts will be characterized by surface area measurement, porosimetry, XRD of powders and HTXRD, XPS, IR and Raman spectroscopies, ESR, TPR and microcalorimetry.
It is expected that the project results will contribute to a further development of catalysis theory and benefit the applied science, by helping to direct the tuning of catalytic properties for preparing practical catalysts for OXD of light paraffins.
Topic(s)
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28049 Madrid
Spain