Ethanol steam reforming over Rh Mg Al catalyst : A kinetic study

C. GRASCHINSKY; M LABORDE; N. AMADEO; A. LE VALANT; N. BION; F EPRON; D. DUPREZ

Salamanca-España

Congreso; Catálysis for a Sustainable World Europacat IX; 2009

The new application of hydrogen as energy vector has increased the search of new and clean production processes of this gas. The traditional process is the methane steam reforming (MSR), nevertheless natural gas is a fossil resource and its use increases the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. On the contrary the ethanol, obtained from biomass, emerges as a very interesting alternative. Ethanol steam reforming (ESR) involves a complex system of reactions in which several products can be obtained such as H2, COx, CH4, C2H4O and C2H4 [1]. ESR has been studied over different catalysts based in Ni, Co or noble metals such as Pd, Ru and Rh [2]. Rh and Ni based catalysts showed the best performance. In this reaction system the support of the catalyst plays a key role in order to avoid coke formation. In this sense, it was found that Rh supported on MgAl spinel showed a better basicity and stability than Rh supported on Al2O3 [3]. In this work a kinetics study on ESR using a Rh(1%)MgAl2O4/Al2O3 catalyst was carried out. Mechanistic kinetics models are proposed applying the initial rate method.