Facile Dehydrogenation of Ethane on the IrO2(110) Surface

Realizing the efficient and selective conversion of ethane to ethylene is important for improving the utilization of hydrocarbon resources, yet remains a major challenge in catalysis. Herein, ethane dehydrogenation on the IrO2(110) surface is investigated using temperature-programmed reaction spectroscopy (TPRS) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The results show that ethane forms strongly bound σ-complexes on IrO2(110) and that a large fraction of the complexes undergo C-H bond cleavage during TPRS at temperatures below 200 K. Continued heating causes as much as 40% of the dissociated ethane to dehydrogenate and desorb as ethylene near 350 K, with the remainder oxidizing to COx species. Both TPRS and DFT show that ethylene desorption is the rate-controlling step in the conversion of ethane to ethylene on IrO2(110) during TPRS. Partial hydrogenation of the IrO2(110) surface is found to enhance ethylene production from ethane while suppressing oxidation to COx species. DFT predicts that hydrogenation of reactive oxygen atoms of the IrO2(110) surface effectively deactivates these sites as H atom acceptors, and causes ethylene desorption to become favored over further dehydrogenation and oxidation of ethane-derived species. The study reveals that IrO2(110) exhibits an exceptional ability to promote ethane dehydrogenation to ethylene near room temperature, and provides molecular-level insights for understanding how surface properties influence selectivity toward ethylene production.