LOHC hydrogen release (methylcyclohexane dehydrogenation)

A liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) power train: methylcyclohexane (MCH) is preheated and catalytically dehydrogenated (MCH -> toluene + 3H2, endothermic, equilibrium-limited to ~90% single-pass conversion) to release hydrogen for downstream power generation. A flash drum separates the H2-rich gas from the liquid; a distillation column then recovers the unreacted MCH overhead and recycles it to the reactor feed, closing a real tight liquid recycle loop, while spent toluene leaves the bottoms (to be re-hydrogenated back to MCH off-site, closing the supply-chain loop — out of scope for this dehydrogenation-side flowsheet). Screening-fidelity note: MCH and toluene are genuinely close-boiling (relative volatility ~1.4 under this thermo package at column conditions), so the recycle carries real toluene along with the recovered MCH rather than a sharp cut — a production column would use more stages to purify it further; this shows the recycle topology and its convergence, not an optimized column design.