Hydrogen Production from Glycerol on Nickel/Alumina Catalyst

SÁNCHEZ, ESTEBAN; D’ANGELO, MIGUEL; COMELLI, RAÚL

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYDROGEN ENERGY

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2009

0360-3199

The growing demand of hydrogen needs renewable sources of raw materials to produce it. Glycerol, by-product of biodiesel synthesis, could be a bio-renewable substrate to obtain hydrogen. A Ni(5.8%)-alumina catalyst was evaluated in the steam reforming of glycerol at 600-700ºC, atmospheric pressure, 16:1 water:glycerol molar ratio, and 3.4-10.0 h-1 WHSV. A glycerol aqueous solution was fed, while a nitrogen stream was co-fed. After 4 hours-on-stream, conversion was 96.8% at 600ºC increasing to 99.4% at 700ºC, reaching the largest hydrogen selectivity (99.7%) at 650ºC. After 8 h, conversion decreases more significantly at 600ºC, while the hydrogen selectivity does not significantly change with temperature and increases by decreasing WHSV. After 4 h, the main by-product was methane (76-97%), increasing at higher temperature, followed by ethene, ethane, propene, and propane. At 700ºC and 10.0 h-1 WHSV, the main by-products were ethene (47%) and methane (37%); it could be associated to catalyst deactivation.