Abstract
Hydrogen, as a clean energy carrier, could be produced aided by cyclic oxidation-reduction of oxygen carriers (OCs) in contact with carbonaceous fuel in chemical looping steam methane reforming (CL-SMR) process. In this study, the cerium was incorporated into the SBA-16 support structure to synthesize the Ni/Ce-SBA-16 OC. The supports were synthesized using hydrothermal method followed by impregnation of Ni and characterized via low and wide angle X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), coupled with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, and transmission electron micrograph (TEM) techniques. In addition, the effect of various Si/Ce molar ratios (20–60) in the support structure, Ni loading (10–30 wt %), reaction temperature (500–750 °C), and life time of optimal oxygen carrier over 16 cycles were investigated. The results of wide angle XRD and SEM revealed that the incorporation of CeO2 in the channels of SBA-16 caused the formation of nickel metallic particles with smaller size and prevents the coke formation. The results showed that OC with 15 wt % Ni and Si/Ce molar ratio of 40 (15Ni/Ce-SBA-16(40)) has the best performance when compared with other OCs in terms of catalytic activity and structural properties. The methane conversion of about 99.7% was achieved at 700 °C using 15Ni/Ce-SBA-16(40) OC. We anticipate that the strategy can be extended to investigate a variety of novel modified mesoporous silica as the supporting material for the Ni based OCs.
Highlights
Hydrogen is an energy carrier that is used in various chemical and petrochemical industries, such as methanol and ammonia production, petroleum refineries and fuel cells [1,2,3,4]
We anticipate that the strategy can be extended to investigate a variety of novel modified mesoporous silica as the supporting material for the Ni based oxygen carriers (OCs)
In order to reduce the cost of reforming, chemical looping reforming (CLR) process was suggested by Mattisson and Lyngfelt [12]
Summary
Hydrogen is an energy carrier that is used in various chemical and petrochemical industries, such as methanol and ammonia production, petroleum refineries and fuel cells [1,2,3,4]. Since combustion of fossil fuels releases different greenhouse gases, such as CO2 , NOx , SOx , and CH4 that causes global warming effect. Hydrogen can replace these fuels [5,6,7,8]. One of the reforming reactions that is conventionally used for this purpose is the partial oxidation of hydrocarbon In this process, the oxygen source could be supplied from either air or pure oxygen. In chemical looping steam methane reforming (CL-SMR) process, methane is converted to synthesis gas in contact with oxygen carriers in the fuel reactor while the reduced oxygen carriers is reoxidized in the air reactor [14,15]
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