Porous Silica Coated Ceria as a Switch in Tandem Oxidative Dehydrogenation and Dry Reforming of Ethane with CO 2

The oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane using CO 2 as soft oxidant for the production of ethylene, possesses the features of valorization of light alkane and utilization of greenhouse gas. Although a significant challenge, the control of the reaction extent can provide a potential on‐purpose ethylene technology. In the present paper, CeO 2 is proposed to be a promising catalyst, while the deep oxidation process of dry reforming is preferred. The SiO 2 coated CeO 2 catalyst can render the reaction more selective towards ethylene. Through high sensitivity low energy ion scattering spectroscopy, findings were made that SiO 2 only partially covered CeO 2 in the Si 0.1 CeO 2 sample, in which the ethylene selectivity was 2.7 times as high as that of the bulk CeO 2 based on the same conversion level. Further, density functional theory calculations also demonstrated that the presence of the SiO 2 layer was more conducive to the desorption of ethylene.