Investigating the speciation of hydrocarbonaceous deposits formed during oxidative dehydrogenation of propane

Propene plays an important role in various petro-chemical applications, such as the production of polypropylene and acrylic acid, but is dependent on the fluctuating prices of oil and natural gas. It is normally produced from stream cracking of naphtha, however there is a trend to crack lighter alkanes such as ethane and so less propene is produced. Another, smaller scale propene production route is needed, two reactions are envisaged, the energy intensive propane dehydrogenation (PD) and exothermic oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODH). Unfortunately, a selective and durable catalyst is yet to be found.This project aims to investigate adsorbed hydrogenous species found on a MoO3/Al2O3 catalyst, precursors for propane ODH and catalyst deactivation during (PD). Measurements on the MAPS spectrometer will aid our assignment of recently recorded spectra recorded on TOSCA (Sept '17).