Catalytic steam reforming of complex gasified biomass tar model toward hydrogen over dolomite promoted nickel catalysts

Abstract

The complex mixture of gasified tar model (phenol, toluene, naphthalene, and pyrene) was steam reformed for hydrogen production over 10 wt% nickel based catalysts. The catalysts were prepared by co-impregnation method with dolomite promoter and various oxide supports (Al2O3, La2O3, CeO2, and ZrO2). Steam reforming was carried out at 700 °C at atmospheric pressure with steam to carbon molar ratio of 1 and gas hourly space velocity of 20 L/h·gcat. The catalysts were characterised for reducibility, basicity, crystalline, and total surface area properties. Dolomite promoter strengthened the metal-support interaction and basicity of catalyst. The Ni/dolomite/La2O3 (NiDLa) catalyst with mesoporous structure (26.42mn), high reducibility (104.42%), and strong basicity (5.56 mmol/g) showed superior catalytic performance in terms of carbon conversion to gas (77.7%), H2 yield (66.2%) and H2/CO molar ratio (1.6). In addition, the lowest amount of filamentous coke was deposited on the spent NiDLa after 5 h.