RESEARCH ARTICLE

Sustainable H2 production from ethanol steam reforming over a macro-mesoporous Ni/Mg-Al-O catalytic monolith

  • Ruixue GU 1 ,
  • Guangming ZENG 1 ,
  • Jingjing SHAO 1 ,
  • Yuan LIU 1 ,
  • Johannes W. Schwank 2 ,
  • Yongdan LI
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  • 1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Applied Catalysis Science and Technology and State Key Laboratory for Chemical Engineering (Tianjin University), School of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
  • 2. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2136, USA

Received date: 06 Dec 2012

Accepted date: 12 May 2013

Published date: 05 Sep 2013

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

A macro-meso-porous monolithic Ni-based catalyst was prepared via an impregnation route using polystyrene foam as the template and then used in the steam reforming of ethanol to produce a H2-rich gas. The Ni/Mg-Al catalyst has a hierarchically macro-meso-porous structure as indicated by photographs and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The surface area of the catalyst was 230 m2∙g-1 and the Ni dispersion was 5.62%. Compared to the pelletized sample that was prepared without a template, the macro-meso-porous Ni/Mg-Al monolith exhibited superior reactivity in terms of H2 production and also had lower CH4 yields at 700ºC and 800ºC. Furthermore, the monolithic catalyst maintained excellent activity and H2 selectivity after 100-h on-stream at 700oC, as well as good resistance to coking and metal sintering.

Cite this article

Ruixue GU , Guangming ZENG , Jingjing SHAO , Yuan LIU , Johannes W. Schwank , Yongdan LI . Sustainable H2 production from ethanol steam reforming over a macro-mesoporous Ni/Mg-Al-O catalytic monolith[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2013 , 7(3) : 270 -278 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-013-1337-2

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Program of Introducing Talents to the University Disciplines under file number B06006, and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Teams in Universities under file number IRT 0641.
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