Sulfate Surfactant Assisted Approach to Fabricate Sulphur-Doped Supported Nanodiamond Catalyst on Carbon Nanotube with Unprecedented Catalysis for Ethylbenzene Dehydrogenation

Direct dehydrogenation (DDH) of ethylbenzene is an efficient chemical process for styrene production. Nanocarbon materials, as clean and low-cost catalysts, have drawn more and more attention in this field. In this work, inspired by the promoting effect of support modulation on the catalytic performance of the general supported-type catalyst, we present a facile sulfate surfactant assisted dispersion with subsequent annealing (SADA) approach for preparing sulphur-doped supported nanodiamond catalyst on carbon nanotube (ND/CNT-SDS) with abundant active sites by using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as both the dispersing agent for promoting the dispersion of catalytically active ND motif and the CNT support and the sulphur source for sulphur doping, yielding an outstanding supported ND catalyst for DDH of ethylbenzene to styrene with 7.7 mmol g(cat.)(-1) h(-1) of styrene rate and 98.2 % of styrene selectivity. ND/CNT-SDS catalyst demonstrates 3.0 times higher styrene rate of the pristine ND. Moreover, ND/CNT-SDS catalyst shows 1.5 times higher styrene rate of the previously reported defect-enriched N,O-codoped ND/CNT (N,O-ND/CNT-d) with up to 98 % of similar styrene selectivity, ascribed to its more exposed C=O active sites and higher specific surface area originating from the promoted dispersion of both ND and CNT by SDS, as well as the sulphur-doping. Moreover, this work also presents a novel and efficient method for the designing the other supported nanocarbon catalysts from dispersion-required catalytically active nanocarbon motif and the nanocarbon carrier.