Hydrogen production and coke resistance characteristic during volatile reforming over Fe2O3–Ce2O3/sludge char catalyst

Abstract

The development of sludge to green hydrogen is a win-win solution for alleviating the environmental pollution caused by sludge and low-carbon hydrogen production. A series of iron-cerium bimetallic oxide catalysts on sludge char (SC) were prepared for catalytic volatile reforming in this work. The physicochemical properties of the catalysts were adjusted by doping with different metals and changing the proportion. The results showed that 50Fe50Ce/SC possessing the minimum coke deposition rate (12.79 mg h−1·gcat−1) obtained a hydrogen yield of 280.55 ml g−1 from catalytic reforming at 800 °C with a steam-to-carbon ratio of 4:1. Analysis of the catalyst structure and activity suggested that the excellent activity mainly originated from the large number of oxygen vacancies. Oxygen vacancies promote the migration of lattice oxygen inside the catalyst bulk to the surface to react with the coke deposition, while the missing oxygen of the catalyst is replenished by steam, and oxygen vacancies play an important role in the enhancement of the catalyst activity and the elimination of coke deposition. The positive potential of this study in hydrogen production and carbon reduction were assessed. The study could provide new ideas for organic solid waste to generate green hydrogen and the development of efficient and low-cost catalysts.