A process of catalytically dehydrogenating an alkane to an alkene, using Cr2O3 as a catalyst, where the catalyst is oxidized to CrO3 during the dehydrogenation, and is regenerated by using CO as a reducing gas. In regenerating the catalyst with CO, CO2 is produced, which may be fed to a dehydrogenation reactor with the alkane and reacted with H2 produced by the dehydrogenation, to form CO and H2O by the reverse water-gas shift reaction.