Iron Oxide Catalysts for Dehydrogenation of Ethylbenzene in the Presence of Steam

Abstract Catalyst research for ethylbenzene (EB) dehydrogenation has been interest to many chemical manufacturers because styrene monomer is such a large-volume chemical and a steady growth of styrene markets is predicted. EB is relatively easy to dehydrogenate and the reaction may be effected by a simple thermal gas-phase process as observed by Berthelot in 1869 [l]. However, a much higher selectivity to styrene is obtained by contact catalysts. The historical evolution of EB dehydrogenation processes has been summarized by Kearby [21 and others [3].