Ethylene glycol-modified CeO2-SiO2 support for Ni catalysts applied in the ethanol steam reforming

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

Buenos Aires

Simposio; 8th Symposium on Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries; 2022

In order to mitigate the environmental impact gener-ated by the use of fossil fuels such as oil, coke and natural gas, the possibility of generating hydrogen from renewable sources has been proposed as an alternative in recent years. Among the most attractive processes, ethanol steam re-forming plays a key role due to the multiple advantages, such as low cost, easy of transportation and the possibility of producing hydrogen in relatively mild conditions, with high efficiency [1].However, the ethanol steam reforming (ESR) reaction has a complex reaction pathways and different by-products such as carbon monoxide, methane, ethylene, acetaldehyde and carbonaceous species, can be generated. Hence, it is necessary to develop catalysts that are active, stable and se-lective under moderate temperature conditions (450-600 °C ).The most studied materials for this reaction are cata-lysts based on noble metals, which exhibit excellent catalytic properties [2,3]; however, their high cost represents a dis-advantage for their use on a larger scale. Therefore, cata-lysts based on Ni, Co and Cu are considered an interesting alternative as active phase in the ethanol steam reforming reaction since they have high catalytic activity and low cost compared to other metals [4].Nevertheless, the main cause of deactivation is related to carbon deposition. In order to improve the catalytic prop-erties, it has been suggested the use of supports that pro-vide a higher interaction with the active phase, a high spe-cific surface that favors dispersion, and promote the oxida-tion of carbonaceous deposits. In addition, it has been re-ported that the use of binary systems can improve the prop-erties of CeO2 as a support [5].Furthermore, in order to increase the dispersion and re-ducibility of Ni particles and favor hydrogen production, it has been reported that increasing the concentration of Si-OH sites by treating silica with ethylene glycol leads to the formation of smaller supported metal particles [6]. Thus, in this work, ethylene glycol-modified Ni/CeO2-SiO2 catalysts were synthesized and compared with the unfunctionalized material in the ethanol steam reforming reaction for hydro-gen production.