Stable and Selective Dehydrogenation of Methylcyclohexane using Supported Catalytically Active Liquid Metal Solutions-Ga₅₂Pt/SiO₂ SCALMS

The use of gallium-rich, Supported Catalytically Active Liquid Metal Solution (SCALMS) is a promising new concept to achieve catalysis with atomically dispersed active metal atoms. Expanding our previous work on short alkane dehydrogenation, we present here the application of SCALMS for the dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane (MCH) to toluene (TOL) using a Ga52Pt alloy (liquid under reaction conditions) supported on silica. Cycloalkane dehydrogenation catalysis has attracted great attention recently in the context of hydrogen storage concepts using liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) systems. The system under investigation showed high activity and stable conversion of MCH at 450 degrees C and atmospheric pressure for more than 75 h time-on-stream (X-MCH=15 %) with stable toluene selectivity (S-TOL) of 85 %. Compared to commercially available Pt/SiO2, the SCALMS system resulted in higher yields and robustness. Baseline experiments with Pt-free Ga/SiO(2)under identical conditions revealed the decisive influence of Pt dissolved in the liquid Ga matrix.