Effect of La addition on catalytic performance of PtSnNa/ZSM-5 catalyst for propane dehydrogenation

Abstract PtSnNaLa/ZSM-5 catalysts with different amounts of lanthanum were prepared by sequential impregnation method, and characterized by XRD, nitrogen adsorption, NH 3 -TPD, FT-IR, TPR, H 2 -TPD, XPS and TPO techniques. It was found that the La species were well dispersed on the internal and external surfaces of ZSM-5 zeolite. With a little addition of La, the catalyst acidity decreased slightly and the active sites of the catalyst were stabilized, which resulted in the increased catalytic selectivity and stability. In PtSnNaLa/ZSM-5 catalyst containing 1.4% La, the stability of catalyst reached the best state and the catalytic selectivity was at the maximum. The average yield of propene was about 35.2% over 80 h for the reaction of propane dehydrogenation at 590 °C. However, as the La content increased, the character of Pt active sites changed obviously and the amount of Lewis acid sites increased, which in consequence decreased the catalytic activity and selectivity. Results from XPS analysis indicated that the addition of La could inhibit the reduction of tin species. Temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) experiments showed that suitable loading of La could prevent the catalyst from coking effectively, whereas the opposite effect was observed when the content of La was excess.