Parametric study of the hydrogenation of dibenzyltoluene and its dehydrogenation performance as a liquid organic hydrogen carrier

The characteristics of the hydrogenation of dibenzyltoluene (H0-DBT) were investigated under a low-pressure system. The hydrogenation experiments were carried out over various metal catalysts, and the Raney-Ni catalyst was found to be the most active. The experiments, all conducted using 10 g of DBT and 1 g of Raney-Ni, studied the influence of various parameters including, pressure, temperature, dosage of H0-DBT, and the stirring speed. The results indicated that 170 °C was the optimal temperature for the hydrogenation reaction, at an initial pressure of 0.80 MPa and a stirring speed of 800 rpm. Moreover, the hydrogenation performance of H0-DBT was compared with 9-ethylcarbazole; the H0-DBT yielded a higher hydrogen capacity (4 wt.%), in comparison with 9-ECZ (2.79 wt.%). Lastly, dehydrogenation reactions of perhydro-dibenzyltoluene (4.36 and 2 wt.%) were carried out over 1 % Pt/C catalyst, at 290 °C, to investigate the amount of hydrogen gas evolved.