Fundamental study of a non-steady operation for 2-propanol de-hydrogenation

The de-hydrogenation of 2-propanol and the hydrogenation of acetone proceed reversibly. This pair of reactions is a promising candidate for a chemical heat pump process or a hydrogen storage process. The efficiency of this process mainly depends on a chemical equilibrium and is not a high value because of low equilibrium conversion of dehydrogenation of 2-propanol. A new operation method, which is independent of an equilibrium of gas phase reaction, was introduced to the de-hydrogenation step. The reactant, 2-propanol was fed in the form of liquid phase through a spray nozzle on a heated Pt/Al2O3/Al catalyst plate. It is vaporized and reacted on the plate, then the product that was adsorbed on it was released. This series of non-steady operations was repeated cyclically at some time interval. Kinetic study for overall reaction rate was conducted. Phenomena on a catalyst plate surface were analyzed by dividing into a reaction phase and an evaporation phase, respectively.