Stable high-purity hydrogen production by dehydrogenation of cyclohexane using a membrane reactor with neither carrier gas nor sweep gas

Hydrogen with purity up to 99.9% was produced stably by dehydrogenation of cyclohexane using a membrane reactor with a hydrogen-selective amorphous silica membrane. This membrane reactor was operated successfully under pressure with no carrier gas on the reaction side or any sweep gas on the permeate side, which is a first in the case of the silica membrane. The reactor could supply hydrogen at atmospheric pressure, with only very small amounts of benzene and unreacted cyclohexane, directly to a fuel cell. In addition, this membrane reactor showed excellent performance stability during five startup–operate–shutdown cycles without any special regeneration process.