Melting Points of Potential Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier Systems Consisting of N-Alkylcarbazoles

Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) represent an attractive concept for storing hydrogen by the hydrogenation of usually aromatic compounds. One of the best investigated LOHCs is N-ethylcarbazole because of its favorable thermodynamic properties. However, its high melting point of 343.1 K could be a major drawback particularly in mobile applications. Therefore, it is desired to decrease the melting point of N-ethylcarbazole without significantly changing favorable properties such as the storage density or the reaction behavior of the carrier compound. To investigate the solid–liquid behavior during hydrogenation, the melting points of pure N-ethylcarbazole derivatives with increasing degree of hydrogenation as well as the liquidus line of the binary mixture of N-ethylcarbazole and N-ethyl-dodecahydro-carbazole were measured. Because of their structural and chemical resemblance binary mixtures consisting of different alkylcarbazole combinations were analyzed regarding their potential for a melting point depression. By the appropriate combination of N-alkylcarbazoles, it is possible to achieve a considerable melting point decrease to 297.1 K.