Substitution potential of rare earth catalysts in ethanol steam reforming

Abstract

This study suggests the possibility of substituting rare earths containing catalysts in ethanol steam reforming by means of sustainability assessment. Four Ni-catalysts are assessed; two of the Ni-catalysts are rare earths containing catalysts Ni/Al2O3-CeO2 and Ni/La2O3 while the other two are non-rare earths containing catalysts Ni/Al2O3 and Ni/ZnO. The sustainability assessment tool used covers environmental, health and safety and economic indicators in conjunction with a linear scale transformation (Max) normalization technique and an analytical hierarchy method to evaluate the sustainability performance of the catalysts. The sustainability assessment results obtained demonstrated that Ni/Al2O3 is the best performing catalysts in terms of the overall sustainability of the ethanol steam reforming reaction. The rare earths containing catalyst supports, i.e. cerium and lanthanum oxides can be successfully substituted with aluminum oxide catalyst support whilst still maintaining the overall sustainability performance of the reaction.