STEAM REFORMING OF N-DODECANE AS A DIESEL MODEL ON NI AND CO-NI CATALYSTS

Abstract

The production of hydrogen is an essential process for chemical industries, generation of electricity and fuel cell applications. Hydrogen as a fuel, can be produced onboard by carrying out reforming of higher hydrocarbons (like diesel, gasoline) in fuel cells. n-dodecane (C12H26) has been used as the model for diesel-like fuel for our study as it is one of the major component in commercial diesel fuel and it resembles diesel in many properties. In spite of its good activity and economic value, nickel when used as a catalyst, is prone to deactivation due to coke deposition. In this work, efforts have been taken to enhance coke resistivity and catalytic efficiency. Diesel steam reforming was done over Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts to investigate the effects of calcination environments. Different techniques like XRD, XPS, H2/CO-TPR, SEM were used to explain the behavior of the catalysts. First, the different calcining conditions were studied, and a mildly oxidizing atmosphere is found to give well dispersed Ni catalyst and an enhanced catalytic activity with less coke formation. Next, addition of a metal (like Co, Fe) to Ni and later calcining in a mildly oxidizing atmosphere gave better catalysts that could perform well with a lesser steam to carbon ratio of 2, and exhibit better carbon resistance than simple Ni/Al2O3 catalysts.