In Producing Clean Hydrogen Fuel: The Effect of substrate type on the Catalytic Performance of Nickel Catalyst during Ethanol Steam Reforming

  • Mrs Fei Wu, School of Applied Chemistry, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
  • Professor Jianxin Ma, Institute of Hydrogen Technologies, Tongji University, China
  • Dr Bill Richmond, School of Applied Chemistry, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
  • Mr Xuefei Li, Division of R& D, Toin Shanghai Co., China
  • A/Professor Haipeng Wang, WASM, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
  • Mr Yuan Tian, Department of Control Theory and Engineering, ECUST University, China

    • In this study, the Wet-Impregnation method was adopted to prepare Nickel catalyst embedded in various substrates. We investigated the effects of substrate properties on catalytic performance in the process of ethanol steam reforming. Experimental results suggested that the conversion of ethanol to hydrogen was 100% at 650oC and pressure 101.3kPa regardless of the type of substrates used. However, the hydrogen-selectivities of these substrates are different. They rank as: ZnO≈La2O3>CeO2>MgO>γ-Al2O3>TiO2>ZrO2>Silica gel>diatomite. TPR and XRD examinations show that the main active phases in these substrates (except TiO2) are Ni compounds. The hydrogen-selectivity is largely dependent on the interaction between Ni and its supporting substrate. When the Ni-substrate interaction is weak, Ni compound exists in distinguishable NiO phase, which weakens the substrate’s selectivity. While when the Ni-substrate interaction is extremely strong, Ni integrated into substrate and no NiO phase can be observed. Under this circumstance, the substrate’s selectivity and reactivity were both low. The best catalytic performance occurred in terms of selectivity and reactivity when Ni-substrate interaction was medium.