Dehydrogenation process utilizing multimetallic catalytic composite

Claim 1

A process for the catalytic dehydrogenation of a dehydrogenatable hydrocarbon which comprises passing said hydrocarbon in contact with a germanium-promoted platinum group metal catalyst at a liquid hourly space velocity of from about 1 to about 40, a temperature of from about 375° to about 650° C., a pressure of from about 0.1 to about 10 atmospheres, and a hydrogen/hyrocarbon mole ratio of from about 1:1 to about 20:1, said catalyst having been prepared by impregnating a porous high surface area carrier material with a non-aqueous solution of a platinum group metal compound and a halo-substituted germane selected from the group consisting of chloro-, fluoro-, bromo-, and iodo-substituted germanes containing less than 4 halo substituents in an amount to provide a final catalyst containing from about 0.05 to about 1.0 wt. % platinum group metal and from about 0.05 to about 1.0 wt. % germanium, and drying, calcining and reducing the thus impregnated carrier material.