Effect of Calcination Temperature on Hydrogen Production via Ethanol Dry Reforming Over Ni/Al2O3 Catalyst

Ni/Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by the wet-impregnation method and calcined at different temperatures (500°C, 600°C and 700°C) to obtain NiAl-1, NiAl-2 and NiAl-3 respectively. NiAl-1, NiAl-2, NiAl-3 represent catalysts calcined at 500°C, 600°C and 700°C respectively. The catalysts were characterized using different techniques, XRD, BET and TGA. XRD results revealed the presence of NiO phase on all the catalysts during calcination, however, the presence of spinel, NiAl2O4, was more pronounced on the catalyst calcined at 600°C (i.e. NiAl-2), indicating the existence of strong metal-support interaction. BET results showed that NiAl-1 has the highest surface area of about 190cm2/g.  All the catalysts were tested for ethanol dry reforming in a tubular stainless steel fixed-bed reactor at 700°C and CO2/ethanol ratio of 3 under atmospheric pressure and were evaluated in terms of reactants conversion and selectivity of H2 to see the effect of the different calcination temperatures on the catalysts’ activities. Ethanol conversion was 100% for all the three catalysts and NiAl-2 has the highest CO2 conversion with an average value of about 57%. The three catalysts have almost the same performance in terms of H2 selectivity. The presence of multi-walled carbon nanofibers (MWCNFs) were confirmed on all the catalysts as revealed by the TGA result. The catalyst calcined at 600°C (i.e. NiAl-2) displayed the best relative catalytic activity