Abstract
Opening cyclic or polycyclic alkanes by carbon–carbon bond cleavage can be a good route for the valorization of certain alkanes. A key point of any proposed catalytic system would be the catalyst poisoning. In this paper, we determine experimentally the influence of the time on stream on the distribution of products when 1,4-dimethylcyclohexane is introduced together with hydrogen over a Ir/SiO
2 catalyst. A simplistic model of selective catalyst poisoning is proposed to explain the influence of the time on stream on the activity and product selectivity.