Summary
Nowadays, the development of fuel cell is getting more and more inseparable from the production of hydrogen. Long‐chain hydrocarbons steam reforming is a feasible way for hydrogen supply. Herein, various nickel‐ceria‐praseodymium (Ni‐Ce‐Pr) catalysts have been prepared by a sol‐gel method. Multiple parameters during catalyst preparation, including the amount of Ni, the content of doped Pr and the calcination temperature, were systematically studied for tuning the catalytic performance for n‐dodecane steam reforming in a fixed‐bed reactor under 15 mL/gcat·h at 600°C and water‐to‐carbon molar ratio of 2 at 0.1 MPa. Reaction data showed that both the amount of Ni and the content of doped Pr will greatly affect the n‐dodecane conversion and hydrogen production. Additionally, the calcination temperature during catalyst preparation showed a big influence on its performance for n‐dodecane steam reforming. After optimization, 10Ni‐CePr2‐600 exhibits the highest activity and stability for n‐dodecane steam reforming, accompanying with the lowest rate of coke deposition (0.015 gc/gcat·h). The structure and oxygen vacancy of the catalyst was characterized by H2‐TPR, Raman, and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The superior activity and stability of 10Ni‐CePr2‐600 are ascribed to the strong interaction between NiO and support along with abundant oxygen vacancies in the Pr‐doped ceria.