Isolated boron in zeolite for oxidative dehydrogenation of propane

Oxidative dehydrogenation of propane (ODHP) is a key technology for producing propene from shale gas, but conventional metal oxide catalysts are prone to overoxidation to form valueless CO_x. Boron-based catalysts were recently found to be selective for this reaction, and B-O-B oligomers are generally regarded as active centers. We show here that the isolated boron in a zeolite framework without such oligomers exhibits high activity and selectivity for ODHP, which also hinders full hydrolysis for boron leaching in a humid atmosphere because of the B-O-SiO_x linkage, achieving superior durability in a long-period test. Furthermore, we demonstrate an isolated boron with a -B[OH…O(H)-Si]₂ structure in borosilicate zeolite as the active center, which enables the activation of oxygen and a carbon-hydrogen bond to catalyze the ODHP.