Steam Reforming of Glycerol for Hydrogen Production over Ni/SiO2 Catalyst

Abstract

The performance of Ni/SiO 2 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/SiO 2 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 H 2 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).

A study to initiate development of sustainable Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalyst for hydrogen production from steam reforming of biomass-derived glycerol

“…The coke deposited on the surface of the catalyst may block the pores and result in decreased surface areas. 31,35 3.1.4 CHNS analysis. CHNS analysis was carried out to determine the amount of carbon deposition studied under different reaction conditions, and the data is shown in Table 2.…”

“…2. 31,33 The 15NA catalyst is further studied using different GWMRs at 650 C for 25 h and the diffraction patterns are shown in Fig. 2B.…”

“…The higher size of 3 Â 5 mm improves the catalytic performance and minimizes coke formation. 31 The present investigation is a part of the ongoing activity on catalyst development for hydrogen production from biomass-derived glycerol for 2-3 kW PEMFC system to meet the immediate requirement of alternate clean energy-based back-up power supply for telecom towers, which were sponsored by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India. There is no commercial catalyst available for glycerol reforming, and IICT has initiated catalyst development based on the previous experience from the development of methanol reforming.…”

The influence of SiO2 doping on the Ni/ZrO2 supported catalyst for hydrogen production through the glycerol steam reforming reaction

“…Previous published works investigating the performance of Ni catalysts supported on SiO2 or ZrO2 in glycerol steam reforming are rather limited [31,[49][50][51][52]. Moreover, and to the best of our knowledge, no work exists in the literature that performs an investigation of nickel catalysts based on zirconia modified with silica supporting material for the GSR.…”

Cr and CeO2 promoted Ni/SBA-15 framework for hydrogen production by steam reforming of glycerol

“…For instance, United States Department of Energy (DOE) is currently allocating a lot of resources for the production of alternative green energy sources such as solar, off-shore wind turbines and hydrogen. Currently, 95% hydrogen is produced mainly from fossil fuels (Sadanandam et al 2012). Industrial production of biodiesel via transesteri cation of fatty acids produces glycerol as a waste product or by-product.…”