FUNCTIONALIZATION WITH ETHYLENE GLYCOL ON H2 PRODUCTION VIA ETHANOL STEAM REFORMING REACTION

JARAMILLO-BAQUERO,MARCELA; MUNERA, JOHN; CORNAGLIA, LAURA

Cancún

Simposio; XXX International Materials Research Congress and International Conference on Advanced Materials.; 2022

Hydrogen is considered as the future energy vector owing to its great potential for generating electricity. In this context, the steam reforming of ethanol could play a key role; it has many advantages such as low cost and the possibility of its conversion to hydrogen at relatively mild reaction conditions. The increasing interest in the use of hydrogen demands the development of active, stable, and selective catalysts at moderate temperatures (450-600°C).The treatment of silica supports by ethylene glycol (EG) was found to increase the concentration of isolated Si-OH species on the silica surface, leading to the formation of smaller metal particles. In this work, Co/CeO2-SiO2(EG) based catalysts were prepared using a binary CeO2-SiO2 support modified by EG. The catalytic properties of the material in the ethanol steam reforming reaction were compared with the unfunctionalized catalyst (Co/CeO2-SiO2).Both catalysts were prepared by the successive incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) of CeN3O9·6H2O and Co(CH₃CO₂)₂·4H₂O onto SiO2 support. After each impregnation, the materials were dried in air and then calcined at 823K for 6h. In the functionalized catalyst, the silica support was pretreated with EG at room temperature for 1h.The catalytic test was performed in a quartz tubular reactor. The catalytic bed was heated in Ar flow until the reaction temperature (773K), then the catalysts were reduced in flowing H2 for 2h. A water/ethanol mixture equal to 5 was fed as reactant, with Ar as the carrier gas.The results showed that when the support was functionalized with EG, a 100% conversion was achieved during 7h of reaction. However, the unfunctionalized catalyst presented a deactivation of approximately 14%. Additionally, the molH2/molC2H6O ratio was equal to 3.9 for the Co/CeO2-SiO2(EG) catalyst. By modifying the catalyst with EG, it was possible to obtain a stream free of oxygenated compounds (acetaldehyde and ethylene).The catalysts were characterized using several techniques. Co3O4 and CeO2 crystalline phases were observed by XRD for both materials. Raman spectroscopy analysis also confirms this observation. In addition, TEM measurements were performed on the reduced catalysts. The results show the presence of more distributed and smaller particles for the Co/CeO2-SiO2(EG) catalyst.