Kinetics of ethanol steam reforming over Cu–Ni/NbxOy catalyst

Abstract

The kinetics of ethanol steam reforming for hydrogen production was evaluated over copper–nickel–niobium catalyst employing differential conditions, so the kinetic parameters were directly obtained by experimental data fitting. A mechanism was proposed according to the production distribution for different contact times, which showed ethanol dehydrogenation followed by decomposition of intermediate acetaldehyde as the first reactions. Both surface dehydrogenation and decomposition reactions were assumed as rate determining steps besides the surface oxidation of intermediate methyl, and kinetic expressions were obtained. A power law model was also fitted to the experimental data. The dehydrogenation and decomposition models satisfactorily represented the experimental data, so they were assumed as possible reaction mechanisms. The surface oxidation of methyl was not consistent with experimental data. Although the power law presented a good correlation, it did not predict the partial blocking effect of acetaldehyde, observed with byproduct and product addition in the feed composition.