Study of deactivation in mesocellular foam carbon (MCF-C) catalyst used in gas-phase dehydrogenation of ethanol

Mesocellular foam carbon (MCF-C) is one the captivating materials for using in gas phase dehydrogenation of ethanol. Extraordinary, enlarge pore size, high surface area, high acidity, and spherical shape with interconnected pore for high diffusion. In contrary, the occurrence of the coke is a majority causes for inhibiting the active sites on catalyst surface. Thus, this study aims to investigate the occurrence of the coke to optimize the higher catalytic activity, and also to avoid the coke formation. The MCF-C was synthesized and investigated using various techniques. MCF-C was spent in gas-phase dehydrogenation of ethanol under mild conditions. The deactivation of catalyst was investigated toward different conditions. Effects of reaction condition including different reaction temperatures of 300, 350, and 400 °C on the deactivation behaviors were determined. The results indicated that the operating temperature at 400 °C significantly retained the lowest change of ethanol conversion, which favored in the higher temperature. After running reaction, the physical properties as pore size, surface area, and pore volume of spent catalysts were decreased owing to the coke formation, which possibly blocked the pore that directly affected to the difficult diffusion of reactant and caused to be lower in catalytic activity. Furthermore, a slight decrease in either acidity or basicity was observed owing to consumption of reactant at surface of catalyst or chemical change on surface caused by coke formation. Therefore, it can remarkably choose the suitable operating temperature to avoid deactivation of catalyst, and then optimize the ethanol conversion or yield of acetaldehyde.