Hydrogen Production via Glycerol Dry Reforming Over La-NiAl2O3 Catalyst

Glycerol (a bio-waste generated from biodiesel production) has been touted as a promising bio-syngas pre-cursor via reforming route. Previous studies have indicated that carbon deposition is the major perform-ance-limiting factor for nickel (Ni) catalyst during glycerol steam reforming. In the curre...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kah, Weng Siew, Hua, Chyn Lee, Jolius, Gimbun, Cheng, C. K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University 2013
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Online Access:http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/6466/1/Hydrogen_Production_via_Glycerol_Dry_Reforming_over_La-NiAl2O3_Catalyst.pdf
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Summary:Glycerol (a bio-waste generated from biodiesel production) has been touted as a promising bio-syngas pre-cursor via reforming route. Previous studies have indicated that carbon deposition is the major perform-ance-limiting factor for nickel (Ni) catalyst during glycerol steam reforming. In the current paper, dry (CO2)-reforming of glycerol, a new reforming route was carried out over alumina (Al2O3)-supported non-promoted and lanthanum-promoted Ni catalysts. Both sets of catalysts were synthesized via wet co-impregnation procedure. The physicochemical characterization of the catalyst showed that the promoted catalyst possessed smaller metal crystallite size, hence higher metal dispersion compared to the virgin Ni/Al2O3 catalyst. This was also corroborated by the surface images captured by the FESEM analysis. In addition, BET surface area measurement gave 92.05m²/g for non-promoted Ni catalyst whilst promoted catalysts showed an average of 1 to 6% improvement depending on the La loading. Reaction studies at 873 K showed that glycerol dry reforming successfully produced H2 with glycerol conversion and H2 yield that peaked at 9.7% and 25% respectively over 2wt% La content. The optimum catalytic performance by 2%La-Ni/Al2O3 can be attributed to the larger BET surface area and smaller crystallite size that ensured accessi-bility of active catalytic area