Abstract
The dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene with carbon dioxide has been carried out over ZSM-5 zeolite-supported iron oxide catalyst as well as commercial catalyst (K-Fe2O3) and unsupported iron oxide (Fe3O4) for comparison. In the dehydrogenation over the ZSM-5 zeolite-supported iron oxide catalyst, ethylbenzene is predominantly converted to styrene by an oxidative pathway in the presence of excess carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in this reaction is found to play a role as an oxidant for promoting catalytic activity as well as coke resistance of catalyst. On the other hand, both of commercial catalyst and unsupported Fe2O4 exhibit considerable decrease in catalytic activity under the same condition. It is suggested that an active phase for the dehydrogenation with carbon dioxide over ZSM-5 zeolite-supported iron oxide catalyst would be rather a reduced and isolated magnetite (Fe3O4)-like phase having oxygen deficiency in the zeolite matrix.