Scaling up of hydrogen production from glycerol steam reforming

COMELLI, RAÚL A.; GARCÍA TOUZA, DIEGO

Río de Janeiro

Conferencia; 22nd World Hydrogen Energy Conference; 2018

The demand of hydrogen, the most simple and abundant element, is growing due to technical advances in the fuel cell industry, being necessary to find renewable sources of raw materials to produce hydrogen. Glycerol, the co-product obtained in the biodiesel process, can be transformed into added-values compounds and/or energetic ones, and it could be a bio-renewable substrate to obtain hydrogen. In Argentina, in the influencing area of Rosario, a capacity of 2.5 million tons annual of biodiesel is installed, generating consequently 250,000 tons/year of glycerol. Since 2007, different catalytic routes are being studied to valorize glycerol; in a laboratory scale, the steam reforming of glycerol to produce hydrogen was exhaustively studied using nickel-based catalysts. Nickel loadings between 2 and 15wt.% were impregnated on alumina, and several promotors such as Co, Zr, Mg, and/or Ce, were added to modified Ni-containing materials. They were characterized by N2-adsorption, temperature-programmed reduction, ammonia temperature-programmed desorption, X-ray diffraction, and FTIR. Catalytic behavior depended on operating conditions, studying the effect of reaction temperature, WHSV, glycerol concentration in the fed aqueous solution, and reaction time; moreover, deactivating processes taking place during the glycerol steam reforming were characterized, being regeneration possible by selecting adequate conditions. Although hydrogen is considered an energy vector and the future fuel, nowadays it is employed as raw material in several industries and a lot of times its supply defines the location of industries which demanding it. The interaction between R&D sector having results at laboratory scale with the production player which have the vision of demand at large scale allow the scaling up of processes. The project actually in execution is the design and construction of a modular pilot plant capable to produce hydrogen by steam reforming of glycerol applying catalysts and conditions selected form laboratory results.