Investigation of silica supported fullerene catalysts for oxidative dehydrogenation of isobutane

摘要

Utilization of carbon allotropes for heterogeneous catalysis is a growing subject1. The metal free nature of these systems infers a significant environmental advantage where the material can be easily disposed of via combustion. Activation of the C-H bonds and subsequent reformation of alkanes is a challenging subject 2 of great interest for the petrochemical industry, especially in light of the recent developments for the natural gas supply. In previous work, carbon nanomaterials were found to have the ability to activate C-H bonds and selectively oxidize alkanes 3. In this study, it is aimed to eliminate the influence of edge and surface groups by using a carbon surface which is relatively clean. Therefore, buckminsterfullerene (C60) supported on high surface area silica was selected. This structure allows for a model catalyst which paves the way for investigation of the behavior of carbon species under oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH).