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

We investigate the role of gas-phase phenomena in the heterogeneous oxidative dehydrogenation of propane over hexagonal boron nitride. We apply a recently developed gas-phase combustion model for low-temperature combustion of propane and couple it with several surface microkinetic mechanisms to probe the selectivity limits using the open-source flame solver Cantera. We show that while the conversion of propane is surface-driven, the selectivities are significantly influenced by the gas-phase, especially when dilute catalyst beds are used.