Alumina supported highly dispersed platinum-copper nanocatalyst with good dehydrogenation performance for perhydromonobenzyltoluene as a hydrogen carrier

Precious metal catalysts are widely used in the field of heterogeneous catalysis in general and the dehydrogenation process for liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) in particular. However, their catalytic activity and selectivity are difficult to improve simultaneously due to the characteristics of transition metals. This study developed a Pt _2.5 Cu _0.1 /Al ₂ O ₃ -H ₂ catalyst that can break the negative correlation between catalytic activity and selectivity, improving its common performance and reducing costs. This method achieved highly dispersed nanoparticles (NPs) and co-localization to form the unique PtCu _x alloy with reduced Pt electron density by anchoring very little Cu doped Pt based alumina catalyst. And it also suppressed strong metal support interaction (SMSI), as confirmed by characterization results such as XPS and HRTEM. These made it exhibit excellent bimetallic synergistic catalytic dehydrogenation activity and selectivity in perhydromonobenzyltoluene (12H-MBT), compared to Pt _2.6 /Al ₂ O ₃ -H ₂ . The reaction energy barrier of 12H-MBT dehydrogenation was measured to be relative low (~ 94 kJ/mol), and the rate determined step of the whole catalytic dehydrogenation was also identified to be 4H-MBT → MBT.