Steam Reforming of Glycerol for Hydrogen Production over NiSiO2 Catalyst

Abstract EN

The performance of Ni/SiO2 catalyst for glycerol reforming has been investigated in fixed-bed reactor using careful tailoring of the operational conditions.

In this paper, a commercial Engelhard catalyst has been sized and compared to gas product distribution versus catalyst size, water-to-carbon ratio, and stability of the catalyst system.

Ni/SiO2 catalysts of three sizes (2×2, 2×4, and 3×5 mm) are evaluated using glycerol: water mixture at 600°C to produce 2 L H2 g−1 cat h−1.

The results indicate that 3×5 mm size pellet is showing minimum coking and maintaining same level of conversion even after several hours of reforming activity.

Whereas studies on 2×2 and 2×4 mm pellets indicate that carbon formation is affecting the reforming activity.

Under accelerated aging studies, with 1 : 9 molar ratio of glycerol to water, 3 mg carbon g−1 cat h−1 was generated in 20 cycles, whereas 1 : 18 feed produced only 1.5 mg carbon g−1 cat h−1 during the same cycles of operation.

The catalysts were characterized before and after evaluation by X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET surface area, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX), CHNS analysis, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS).