Noble Metals-Based Catalysts for Hydrogen Production via Bioethanol Reforming in A Fluidized Bed Reactor

Abstract

: In this work, Pt-Ni/CeO 2 -SiO 2, as well as Ru-Ni/CeO 2 -SiO 2 catalysts, were obtained at different loadings of the noble metal (in the interval 0–3 wt%) and tested for oxidative steam reforming of ethanol. Stability performance was evaluated at 500 °C for 25 h under a steam to ethanol ratio of 4 and an oxygen to ethanol ratio of 0.5. The weight hourly space velocity was fixed to 60 h − 1 , which is considerably higher than the typical values selected for such processes. All the catalysts deactivated with time-on-stream, due to the severe operative conditions selected. However, the highest ethanol conversion (above 95%) and hydrogen yield (30%) at the end of the test were recorded over the 2 wt%Pt-10 wt%Ni/CeO 2 -SiO 2 catalyst, which also displayed a limited carbon formation rate (1.5 × 10 − 6 g coke ·g catalyst − 1 ·g carbon,fed − 1 ·h − 1 , reduced almost 5 times compared to the samples that had a Pt or Ru content of 0.5 wt%). Thus, the latter catalyst was identified as a promising candidate for future tests under real bioethanol mixture.