Nanomaterials (Mar 2023)

Rhodium-Based Catalysts: An Impact of the Support Nature on the Catalytic Cyclohexane Ring Opening

  • Kristina E. Kartavova,
  • Mikhail Yu. Mashkin,
  • Mikhail Yu. Kostin,
  • Elena D. Finashina,
  • Konstantin B. Kalmykov,
  • Gennady I. Kapustin,
  • Petr V. Pribytkov,
  • Olga P. Tkachenko,
  • Igor V. Mishin,
  • Leonid M. Kustov,
  • Alexander L. Kustov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13050936
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 5
p. 936

Abstract

Read online

Because of the growing demand for high-quality fuels, the light cycle oil fraction improvement including cetane number improvement is important. The main way to reach this improvement is the ring opening of cyclic hydrocarbons, and a highly effective catalyst should be found. Cyclohexane ring openings are a possible option to investigate the catalyst activity. In this work, we investigated rhodium-loaded catalysts prepared using the commercially available industrial supports: single-component ones, SiO2 and Al2O3; and mixed oxides CaO + MgO + Al2O3 and Na2O + SiO2 + Al2O3. The catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation and investigated by N2 low-temperature adsorption-desorption, XRD, XPS, DRS UV-Vis and DRIFT spectroscopy, SEM, and TEM with EDX. The catalytic tests were performed in cyclohexane ring opening in the range of 275–325 °C. The best result was demonstrated by the sample 1Rh/CaMgAlO: the selectivity to n-hexane was about 75% while the cyclohexane conversion was about 25% at 275 °C. The space-time yield was up to 12 mmoln-hexane gcat−1h−1.

Keywords