Contribution of Different Species in Ni‐Ceria Nanorods Catalysts Applied to Steam Reforming of Ethanol

Abstract

Ni-CeO 2 nanorods catalysts (1-10 wt% Ni loadings) were evaluated in steam reforming of ethanol (SRE). Ex situ and in situ characterization showed two populations of Ni species according to Ni loading: (i) one highly dispersed, strongly interacting with CeO 2 (Ni sup ) and (ii) another one formed by Ni nanoparticles (Ni bulk ). While the metal loading impacted on the Ni bulk fraction, the Ni sup population remained similar, leading to similar activities of the catalysts toward SRE. The results highlight the role of the Ni sup fraction in the catalyst performance. Nevertheless, we found that while Ni bulk species favored carbon deposition, the Ni sup species were easily oxidized at low temperatures, leading to catalyst deactivation. The results suggest that the co-existence of both Ni species may stabilize the reduced form of the Ni sup species by hydrogen activation on the Ni bulk species and represents a new strategy to be explored to optimize the activity and stability of SRE catalysts.

Addition of tungsten in Co/Al2O3 to catalyse the production of hydrogen through acetic acid steam reforming

“…Hydrogen (H 2 ) energy has been widely used as a clean energy source due to the trend toward global carbon neutralization. [1][2][3][4][5] The total global H 2 demand was 324.8 billion m 3 in 2020. [6] Currently, the main H 2 production methods are coal gasification, natural gas reforming, naphtha reforming, biomass utilization and water electrolysis.…”

“…Hydrogen (H 2 ) energy has been widely used as a clean energy source due to the trend toward global carbon neutralization [1–5] . The total global H 2 demand was 324.8 billion m 3 in 2020 [6] .…”