Pt/CeO2 catalyst synthesized by combustion method for dehydrogenation of perhydro-dibenzyltoluene as liquid organic hydrogen carrier: Effect of pore size and metal dispersion

Abstract Liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) is a chemical hydrogen storage method that stores hydrogen in the form of liquid organics. Dibenzyltoluene (DBT) is a promising LOHC material due to its high storage density, low ignitability, and low cost. In this study, Pt/Al2O3 and Pt/CeO2 catalysts are synthesized using a combustion nanocatalyst synthesis method called the glycine nitrate process (GNP) to obtain high catalytic activity for the dehydrogenation of perhydro-dibenzyltoluene (H18-DBT). Pt/CeO2 exhibits much faster dehydrogenation than Pt/Al2O3, 80.5%/2.5 h versus 3.5%/2.5 h. To investigate the causes of the difference in the dehydrogenation rates, microstructural characterization by N2 physisorption, CO chemisorption and transmission electron microscopy analysis are conducted, and the catalytic activities are evaluated at various liquid hourly space velocities (LHSVs). The differences in dehydrogenation can be attributed to the mass transport of liquid H18-DBT into the catalyst pores being slow due to the small pores in Pt/Al2O3, which is a rarely addressed issue for other LOHC materials. This is because many LOHC materials are dehydrogenated at the gas phase, which has higher diffusivity than that of the liquid phase. Pt/CeO2 synthesized by the GNP is also compared with a commercial Pt/Al2O3 catalyst. The commercial Pt/Al2O3 catalyst shows a dehydrogenation of 17.8%/2.5 h, which is much slower than that of Pt/CeO2 synthesized by the GNP, at 80.5%/2.5 h.