Development of Dehydrogenation System for Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier with Enhanced Reaction Rate

Owing to the massive expansion and intermittent nature of renewable power, green hydrogen production, storage, and transportation technologies with improved economic returns need to be developed. Moreover, the slowness of the dehydrogenation reaction is a primary barrier to the commercialization of liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) technology. The present study focused on increasing the speed of dehydrogenation, resulting in the proposal of a triple-loop dehydrogenation system comprising reaction, heating, and chilling loops. The reactor has a rotating cage containing a packed bed of catalyst pellets, which is designed to enhance both heat and mass transfer by helping to detach precipitated hydrogen bubbles from the catalyst surface. In addition, the centrifugal force aids in isolating the gas phase from the LOHC liquid. A dehydrogenation experiment was conducted using the reaction and chilling loops, which revealed that the average hydrogen production rate during the first hour was 52.6 LPM (liter per minute) from 26.3 L of perhydro-dibenzyl-toluene with 1.5 kg of 0.5 wt% Pt/Al₂O₃ catalyst. This was approximately 48% more than the value predicted with the reaction kinetics measured with a small-scale plug flow dehydrogenation reactor with less than 1.0 g of 5.0 wt% Pt/Al₂O₃ catalyst. The concept, construction methods, and results of the preliminary gas infiltration, flow visualization, and reactor pumping experiments are also described in this paper.