Flowerlike microspheres catalyst NiO/La 2O 3 for ethanol-H 2 production

Abstract

Catalysts of nano-sized nickel oxide particles based on flowerlike lanthanum oxide microspheres with high disperse were prepared to achieve simultaneous dehydrogenation of ethanol and water molecules on multi-active sites. XRD, SEM, 77K N 2 adsorption were used to analyze and observe the catalysts’ structure, morphology and porosity. Catalytic parameters with respect to yield of H 2, activity, selectivity towards gaseous products and stability with time-on-stream and time-on-off-stream were all determined. This special morphology NiO/La 2O 3 catalyst represented more than 1000 h time-on-stream stability test and 500 h time-on-off-stream stability test for hydrogen fuel production from ethanol steam reforming at 300 °C without any deactivation. During the 1000 h time-on-stream stability test, ethanol–water mixtures could be converted into H 2, CO, and CH 4 with average selectivity values of 57.0, 20.1, 19.6 and little CO 2 of 3.2 mol%, respectively, and average ethanol conversion values of 96.7 mol%, with H 2 yield of 1.61 mol H 2/mol C 2H 5OH. During the 500 h time-on-off-stream stability test, ethanol–water mixtures could be converted into H 2, CO, CH 4 and CO 2 with average selectivity values of 65.1, 17.3, 15.1 and 2.5 mol%, respectively, and average ethanol conversion values of 80.0 mol%. For the ethanol-H 2 and petrolic hybrid vehicle (EH–HV), the combustion value is the most important factor. So, it was very suitable for the EH–HV application that the low temperature ethanol steam reforming products’ distribution was with high H 2, CO, CH 4 and very low CO 2 selectivity over the special NiO/La 2O 3 flowerlike microspheres.