A study on pretreatment conditions of liquid-phase dehydrogenation catalyst for chemical heat pump.

Pretreatment conditions of nickel fine-particle catalysts have been studied by changing the temperatures of hydrogen reduction. The catalysts were used for an endothermic lowtemperature reaction in a newly-proposed chemical heat pump. Surface oxides of the catalyst were removed by hydrogen between 150 and 180°C according to TG analysis (Fig.1). Dehydrogenation rates of 2-propanol without acetone (82.4°C) were relatively high for the catalysts reduced at high pretreatment temperatures, whereas those of 2-propanol containing 5.5 % acetone (80.0°C) became rather unfavored (Table 1). Proper pretreatment conditions for high suspension stability and catalytic activity at high acetone concentrations are important for improving heat pump performance.