Studies on ethylbenzene dehydrogenation with CO2 as soft oxidant over Co3O4/COK-12 catalysts

Oxidative dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene has been studied over Co3O4 supported on mesoporous silica (COK-12) with CO2 as soft oxidant in a fixed bed reactor at atmospheric pressure in the temperature range of 723 to 923K. While COK-12 has been prepared by self-assembly method using long chain ionic surfactant i.e., P123 as template, cobalt oxide supported on COK-12 catalysts with variable Co content have been synthesised by simple wet impregnation technique. All the catalysts were characterized by N-2 adsorption - desorption, XRD, FT-IR, TPR, UV-Vis and XPS techniques. XRD and pore size distribution studies indicate the intactness of mesoporous structure of SiO2 even after incorporation of Co3O4. Presence of Co3O4 crystallites were observed beyond 5 wt% Co loading. High ethylbenzene conversion and stable styrene yields have been observed over 3% Co3O4/COK-12 catalyst due to the presence of large number of active Co3O4 catalytic sites. Enhancement in the activity has been observed with CO2 as soft oxidant than with N-2 as diluent. This is because of the fact that the liberated H-2 reacts with CO2 in the form of reverse water gas shift reaction.