High-purity Hydrogen Production from Dehydrogenation of Methylcyclohexane Catalyzed by Zeolite-encapsulated Subnanometer Platinum-iron Clusters

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2025 Jan 2

PMID 39746992

Authors

Zhe He

Kailang Li

Tianxiang Chen

Yunchao Feng

Eduardo Villalobos-Portillo

Carlo Marini

Tsz Woon Benedict Lo

Fuyuan Yang

Liang Zhang

Lichen Liu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) are considered promising carriers for large-scale H storage and transportation, among which the toluene-methylcyclohexane cycle has attracted great attention from industry and academia because of the low cost and its compatibility with the current infrastructure facility for the transportation of chemicals. The large-scale deployment of the H storage/transportation plants based on the toluene-methylcyclohexane cycle relies on the use of high-performance catalysts, especially for the H release process through the dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane. In this work, we have developed a highly efficient catalyst for MCH dehydrogenation reaction by incorporating subnanometer PtFe clusters with precisely controlled composition and location within a rigid zeolite matrix. The resultant zeolite-encapsulated PtFe clusters exhibit the up-to-date highest reaction rate for dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane to toluene, very high chemoselectivity to toluene (enabling the production of H with purity >99.9%), remarkably high stability (>2000 h) and regenerability over consecutive reaction-regeneration cycles.

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