Kinetics of oxidative bio-ethanol reforming over bimetallic structured catalysts

Abstract

The core of this work is a comprehensive investigation of ethanol oxidative reforming kinetics over a Pt–Ni/CeO2–Al2O3 catalyst in the presence of fuel grade bioethanol, which has been very rarely investigated in the past. The developed kinetic model also included the formation of solid carbon. The results show that the reaction scheme involving ethylene and acetaldehyde formation from ethanol, their subsequent decomposition, methane oxidation as well as steam reforming and water gas shift reaction is able to assure a satisfactory fitting of the experimental data. Moreover, the above formulation, deposited on a porous support (Ni–Fe foam), was employed for a very long stability test (almost 400 h) and subjected to several oxidation-reduction cycles: at 600 °C, after 170 h of time-on-stream, a stable ethanol conversion of 95% and hydrogen yield of 35% were recorded, with near-zero carbon emission during its thermochemical conversion for energy generation.