Carbon nanotube as catalyst support in supercritical water

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are possible catalyst supports for biomass gasification. In this study, glucose (5 wt%), a typical model compound of biomass, was gasified with a 0.5 wt% ruthenium catalyst on a CNT support. Only 0.15 g of catalyst containing 0.5 wt% Ru was sufficient to achieve complete gasification. High stability was observed in supercritical water at 600 °C and 25 MPa using a packed bed reactor. Compared with previous studies, the amount of Ru used in this study was one to two orders of magnitude lower than that on other catalyst supports. This makes CNT a promising catalyst support for supercritical water gasification.