Ambient temperature pressure driven alkane dehydrogenation by palladium metal

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel ambient-temperature alkane dehydrogenation process using high-pressure palladium catalysis, enabling energy-efficient olefin and hydrogen production with reversible hydride formation.

Contribution

It introduces a pressure-driven dehydrogenation method at ambient temperature, differing from traditional high-temperature processes, with reversible palladium hydride intermediates.

Findings

Dehydrogenation occurs at 50-100 MPa and ambient temperature.

Hydrogen and olefins are recovered upon decompression.

The process involves reversible palladium hydride formation.

Abstract

Dehydrogenation of alkanes is of increasing importance in fulfilling global demand for olefins and offers a potential source of carbon-neutral hydrogen as a co-product. Currently commercial dehydrogenation processes occur at high-temperatures (500-900$^\circ$C) which is energy intensive and results in side reactions and rapid coking of the catalysts. In addition the hydrogen produced is often burned to maintain temperature and to inhibit the back reaction. Here we demonstrate pressure as a parameter to enable novel chemical catalytic processes and demonstrate ambient-temperature dehydrogenation of alkanes by palladium at 50-100 MPa pressures, with both hydrogen gas and olefins recovered on decompression. This reaction follows a fundamentally different path to current commercial high-temperature low-pressure dehydrogenation processes with the palladium catalyst reversibly forming a hydride intermediate.