Low-temperature catalytic steam reforming of toluene as a biomass tar model compound over three-dimensional ordered macroporous Ni-Pt/Ce1−xZrxO2 catalysts

Abstract

Ceria–zirconia solid solution (Ce1−xZrxO2) is a fascinating catalyst support in steam reforming reaction. In order to further improve the performance of Ni-based catalyst with Ce1−xZrxO2 as support for tar team reforming, three-dimensional ordered macroporous Ni-Pt/Ce1−xZrxO2 (Ni-Pt/C1−xZx-3DOM; x = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) catalysts were prepared by a colloidal crystal template method and their catalytic performances for toluene steam reforming were investigated in low temperature range. The Ni-Pt/C1−xZx-3DOM exhibited excellent catalytic performance, and toluene conversion of Ni-Pt/C0.8Z0.2-3DOM reached 90.4 % at 500 °C under 185 μmol/min toluene flowrate and 10,000 h−1 GHSV. Besides, this catalyst showed good durability with 1.7 mg gcat−1 h−1 carbon deposition rate during 30 h of operation at 600 °C. The characterization results demonstrated the Ni-Pt/C1−xZx-3DOM exhibits desirable characteristics to promote the catalysis performance compared to non-porous Ni-Pt/C1−xZx, including more oxygen vacancies on catalyst surface, higher specific surface areas, larger pore volumes, more meso-pores, smaller crystalline size of active component and support, and better reducibility.