Dehydrogenation of Methylcyclohexane for On-Board Hydrogen Use: Initial Rate Kinetics Over 1.0 wt% Pt/γ-Al2O3

Dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane was studied over an in-house developed 1.0 wt% Pt/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst. Experiments were conducted at various levels of temperature, pressure, space velocity, and feed composition. With increase in W/F (A0), the methylcyclohexane conversion was observed to increase exponentially towards the equilibrium or maximum conversion. The function "exponential rise to maximum" is used to represent the experimental data and initial rates of the reaction were employed to analyze the data. A power law model and two Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW) models (single-site and dual-site) were applied to model the experimental data. Kinetic model equation based on dual-site LHHW was found the most appropriate with activation energy of the reaction system equal to 62.9 kJ/mol.