System optimization of cyclohexane dehydrogenation under multiphase reaction conditions using the uniform design method

Hydrogen production via cyclohexane dehydrogenation catalyzed by a Raney-Ni catalyst under multiphase reaction conditions was investigated in this study. The uniform design (UD) method was employed to optimize the performance of the dehydrogenation reaction system of cyclohexane under wet-dry multiphase reaction conditions and to evaluate the effects of the process parameters on several response functions, such as the total amount of hydrogen produced in 2 h, the dehydrogenation conversion of cyclohexane and the relative activity of the catalyst. The results indicated that the data were well fitted by the regressed second-order polynomial models. Optimum reaction conditions for each response were obtained, under which the total amount of hydrogen produced in 2 h reached 9280 ml, the hydrogen produced through the conversion of cyclohexane was 18.63 and the relative activity of the catalyst maintained 0.91. In addition, the optimum reaction conditions for multi-response optimization were obtained, under which all three responses were expected to exhibit a relatively good performance. Confirmation experiments demonstrated that the UD method is a powerful and useful approach for optimizing the system of cyclohexane dehydrogenation under multiphase reaction conditions and is expected to provide valuable information for both efficient and economical hydrogen production. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.