Exploring environmentally friendly and economic catalysts is of vital importance in the dehydrogenation of propane to propylene (PDH). In the present work, the PDH property of Co/Al₂O₃ was investigated. It was found that the two dimensional dispersed Co²⁺ species (cobalt surface phase, CSP) on alumina, existed as non-stoichiometric cobalt aluminum spinel, CoO·(Al₂O₃)_x, is responsible for the PDH activity, whereas Co₃O₄ with weak interaction with the support are easily reduced to metallic cobalt species during reaction, which are active for side reactions, causing coking and deactivation of the catalyst. Bulk CoAl₂O₄ spinel is inactive in the reaction. Consequently, through modulating the structure of Co/Al₂O₃ to have a high content of CSP with strong interaction with the support, the PDH performance of the catalyst was greatly improved. Recyclability test shows that Co₃O₄ clusters produced from sintering of cobalt species via reaction-regeneration cycles are the major cause for the decline of PDH activity with increasing recycling cycles.

在丙烷脱氢成丙烯（PDH）方面，探索环保和经济的催化剂至关重要。在目前的工作中，研究了Co / Al ₂ O ₃的PDH性能。发现在氧化铝上二维分散的Co ²⁺物种（钴表面相，CSP）以非化学计量的钴铝尖晶石CoO·（Al ₂ O ₃）_x存在，是PDH活性的原因，而Co与载体相互作用较弱的₃ O ₄在反应过程中容易还原为金属钴，对副反应有活性，从而导致催化剂焦化和失活。散装煤炭₂O ₄尖晶石在反应中没有活性。因此，通过调节Co / Al ₂ O ₃的结构使其具有高含量的CSP，并与载体发生强烈的相互作用，大大提高了催化剂的PDH性能。可回收性测试表明，通过反应再生循环烧结钴物种而产生的Co ₃ O ₄团簇是PDH活性随循环次数增加而下降的主要原因。