Lanthanum Modified Catalyst for Efficient Supply of Hydrogen through Dehydrogenation of Organic Chemical Hydrides

Abstract

Dehydrogenation process of organic chemical hydrides was improved by modifying the catalyst of nickel-activated carbon (Ni/AC) with lanthanum (La). The catalysts were prepared in impregnation method with different amounts of La and Ni. The textural properties and morphology of catalyst were analyzed by nitrogen adsorption and transmission electron microscope equipped with energy dispersive spectrometer respectively. The effects such as metal content and granule size on the dehydrogenation of cyclohexane were investigated in fixed bed reactor. The results show that the metallic active components can be well dispersed on the support, and the elements analysis indicates the metal species tend to assemble on the surface layer rather than being distributed equally in the whole catalyst. The La modified catalyst LaNi/AC exhibited superior catalytic performance to Ni/AC and the conversion was 45% for LaNi/AC catalyst at 673K, while only 34 % for Ni/AC under the same conditions.