Dehydrogenation of Ethylbenzene with Carbon Dioxide in the Presence of Chromosilicate-Based Composites

In this work, the catalytic performance of a series of Fe2O3/chromosilicate (Fe2O3/M[Cr]ZSM-5, M = Na or K) composites with different Fe2O3 loadings together with pure γ-Fe2O3 was investigated for the dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene (EB) to styrene (ST) in the presence of CO2 as the oxidant. The composites were prepared by a solid-state dispersion (SSD) method. These samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetry (TG), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and N2 physical adsorption analysis. According to the results, virgin γ-Fe2O3 revealed low performance (in terms of selectivity to styrene) due to the partial reduction of Fe3+ ions in its structure. For the purpose of improving the efficiency of Fe2O3 nanoparticles in the ethylbenzene dehydrogenation reaction, chromosilicate was used as a support and Fe2O3/chromosilicate composites were prepared by introducing different amounts of Fe2O3. In t...