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Abstract

Physical and chemical insights into the nature and quantity of the active sites and the intrinsic catalytic activity of nanocarbon materials in alkane oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) reactions are reported using a novel in situ chemical titration process. A study on the structure–function relationship reveals that the active sites are identical both in nature and function on various nanocarbon catalysts. Additionally, the quantity of the active sites could be used as a metric to normalize the reaction rates, and thus to evaluate the intrinsic activity of nanocarbon catalysts. The morphology of the nanocarbon catalysts at the microscopic scale exhibits a minor influence on their intrinsic ODH catalytic activity. The number of active sites calculated from the titration process indicates the number of catalytic centers that are active (that is, working) under the reaction conditions.