New nickel-based material (Sr12Al14O33) for biomass tar steam reforming for syngas production

Abstract

A new “free oxygen” material, Sr12Al14O33 (Sr12A7), was developed as a Ni support for biomass tar steam reforming. Toluene was chosen as the model compound for biomass gasification tar. The steam reforming process was investigated in a fixed-bed reactor. The influence of the operating parameters (i.e., reaction temperature, steam-to-carbon ratio, and space time) on catalyst activity and product selectivity were studied. Ni/Sr12A7 (5 wt %) showed a higher activity compared with a similar commercial catalyst, Ni/Dolomite. The influence of the steam/carbon (S/C) molar ratio on gas yields at values ranging from 1.5 to 4.0 was investigated. The results show that the H2 and CO2 yields increased, whereas the CO yield decreased, when the S/C ratio was increased. The influence of space-time (wcat/Ftoluene) was also determined. The H2, CO2, and total gas yields increased when the ratio was increased. Catalyst ageing experiments were characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX). Based on the results, the kinetic model is proposed as a first-order reaction for toluene with an activation energy of 131.2 kJ·mol−1, as generally accepted in the literature.