Study of cerium-promoted rhodium alumina catalyst as a steam reforming catalyst for treatment of spent solvents

Abstract This study attempted to develop an appropriate catalyst used for the steam reforming of gasified spent solvents. Rh 2 O 3 / CeO 2 -Al 2 O 3 catalysts with various CeO 2 loadings were prepared and heated at different temperatures of 500 and 800 °C, and their surface properties were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), temperature programmed reduction (TPR) and Brumauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyses. Rhodium existed in the form of Rh 2 O 3 , regardless of the sample composition as well as the heating temperature. In the tested range of cerium addition (up to 12 times the rhodium mass), no significant changes in BET surface areas and binding energy corresponding to Rh 3d 5/2 were observed. Instead, the addition of cerium led to a greatly enhanced dispersion of rhodium nanoparticles, and no agglomeration of rhodium was observed for samples heated even at 800 °C. Honeycomb monolith rhodium catalysts promoted with cerium were fabricated and tested for the steam reforming of a gasified spent solvent, mainly consisting of butylene (C 4 H 8 ). The test results suggested that a cerium-promoted rhodium catalyst could be used as an appropriate reforming catalyst for treating low-quality non-methane hydrocarbons without the formation of coke at high temperatures of up to 900 °C.