Hydrogen production from ethanol steam reforming over nickel–based catalysts supported on Ceria

The objective of this work is to investigate the catalytic performance of nickel-based catalyst supported on ceria for producing hydrogen-rich stream via ethanol steam reforming. This work was divided into two phases. In the first phase, three series of nickel-based catalysts with different metal loadings supported on conventional polycrystalline ceria, Ni-Mn/CeO2-P, Ni-Cu/CeO2-P and Ni-Cu-Mn/CeO2-P, were synthesized. The catalytic performance of those samples in ethanol steam reforming under atmospheric pressure, reaction temperature of 400oC, S/E ratio of 3 and W/F ratio of 22.44gcath/moleethanol was examined. The results revealed that catalysts with high copper content gave considerable hydrogen yield, but expressed strong preference for detrimental byproducts including CO, CH3CHO, CH3COCH3 and C2H4. 10Mn90Ni/CeO2-P was the best catalyst in terms of ethanol conversion, hydrogen yield and product distribution. This loading was then applied for the second phase, where a statistical matrix of experiments at a 95% confidence interval to determine significant factors and to find optimum conditions for maximal hydrogen yield. Results from 24 factorial design with 4 central points revealed that conducting experiments at high reaction temperatures and high S/E molar ratio using catalysts supported on ceria nanorods would be beneficial for hydrogen production. The maximum hydrogen yield obtained was 43.1% at temperature of 600oC, S/E ratio of 7 and catalysts with ceria nanorods support.