Development of Fe-promoted Ni-Al catalyst for hydrogen production from gasification of wood sawdust

Dong, Lisha; Wu, Chunfei; Ling, Huajuan; Shi, Jeffrey; Williams, Paul T.; Huang, Jun

Abstract

The production of renewable hydrogen enriched gas from biomass waste is a promising technology for the development of a sustainable economy and society. Until now, there are still challenges of the technology in terms of the efficiency of hydrogen production. Catalyst is known and has been tested to enhance hydrogen production from biomass gasification. In particular using Ni-based catalysts, which have high reactivity for hydrogen production and are cost effective. However, developing a Ni-based catalyst with high thermal stability and resistance of coke deposition on the surface of the catalyst is still a challenging topic. In this work, Ni-Al catalysts doped with low-cost Fe metal were investigated for hydrogen enriched syngas production from gasification of biomass using a two-stage fixed bed reactor. NiO-Fe2O3-Al2O3 catalysts with various Ni:Fe molar ratios (9:1, 8:2, 6:4, 5:5, 4:6, 2:8 and 1:9) were studied aiming to understand the influence of Fe addition on the production of hydrogen and the catalyst stability in terms of coke deposition on surface. X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programme reduction (TPR) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of the fresh catalysts showed that nanoparticles (mainly NiAl2O4 spinel phase and Al2O3, ~5 nm) were identified in the catalysts. High dispersion of metal particles was obtained using a co-precipitation method of catalyst preparation. With the increase of Fe addition, hydrogen production was reduced from around 11 to 8 (mmol H2 g-1 biomass). However, the addition of Fe into the Ni-based catalyst significantly reduced the amount of coke deposited on the surface of the catalyst. H2/CO molar ratio was maximized to 1.28 when Ni:Fe molar ratio was 1:1. In addition, sintering of metal particles was not observed through the TEM analysis of the fresh and reacted catalyst.

Citation

Dong, L., Wu, C., Ling, H., Shi, J., Williams, P. T., & Huang, J. (2017). Development of Fe-promoted Ni-Al catalyst for hydrogen production from gasification of wood sawdust. Energy and Fuels, 31(3), 2118-2127. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b02050

• Acceptance Date: Oct 22, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Nov 3, 2016
• Publication Date: Mar 16, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jan 18, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 18, 2017
• Journal: Energy and fuels
• Print ISSN: 0887-0624
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 2118-2127
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b02050
• Keywords: Fuel Technology; Energy Engineering and Power Technology; General Chemical Engineering
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/447230
• Publisher URL: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b02050
• Additional Information: This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in [Energy and fuels, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see DOI: 10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b02050
• Contract Date: Jan 18, 2017