LAUSR

Abstract A series of catalysts in which platinum was supported on the crystalline pure titanium silicalite (TS-1) were prepared using two different loading methods, namely, an ethylene glycol (EG) reduction method and the conventional incipient wetness impregnation (IM) technique. Various characterization techniques were used to study the effect of the loading method on the physicochemical and morphological properties of the prepared catalysts. Also the effect of the platinum-loading method on the dehydrogenation of n-butane was investigated in a fixed-bed reactor. The results show that the EG method favors the formation of a more-concentrated Pt dispersion, which results in much better catalytic activities for the selective formation of butenes and butadiene (> 97 %). This phenomenon is interpreted by carrying out density functional theory (DFT) calculations with focus on the relationship between the coverage of n-butane on Pt surface and the activation barrier for the first C H bond cleavage.