Continuous dehydrogenation of dodecahydro-N-ethylcarbazole for hydrogen production in a micro-packed bed reactorDodecahydro-N-ethylcarbazole (12H-NEC) is a potential liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC). However, the dehydrogenation reaction suffers from many problems, such as the slow reaction rate, limited mass and heat transfer, and dealkylation side reaction. In this work, we propose a continuous dehydrogenation process using a micro-packed bed reactor for 12H-NEC. Full conversion and high hydrogen release (5.65 wt%) are achieved at 180 °C with no carbazole detected, using 1% Pd/Al2O3 catalyst. Under the same temperature and pressure (140 °C, 0.1 MPa), but with varying mass and heat transfer, the specific productivity of the catalyst in the micro-packed bed reactor (0.0123 gH2/(gcat∙h)) is nearly 1.8 times greater than that in a batch reactor (0.00681 gH2/(gcat∙h)). The continuous dehydrogenation process exhibits excellent stability with no significant deactivation within 200 h. Furthermore, the dehydrogenation kinetics are determined. This study provides a promising approach for the high-efficiency dehydrogenation of LOHCs. |