Sorption enhanced ethanol steam reforming on a bifunctional Ni/CaO catalyst for H2 production

Abstract The activity and stability of a 10 wt%NiO/CaO catalyst were tested in the sorption enhanced ethanol steam reforming (SEESR) in a fluidized bed reactor. The effect of temperature in the 600–750 °C range was analyzed and the performance of the catalyst at 700 °C was assessed by conducting cycles of SEESR reaction and CO2 desorption. At zero time on stream, an increase in temperature enhanced ethanol steam reforming reactions, and therefore H2 production increased from a yield of 20.3 wt% at 600 °C to 22 wt% at 750 °C. However, high temperatures hindered the catalyst sorption performance, i.e., CO2 capture declined from 7.9 to 2.1 mmolCO2 gcat−1. In order to evaluate the catalyst performance throughout the cycles and relate it with its features, both fresh and deactivated catalysts were characterized in detail by N2 adsorption-desorption, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programmed reduction (TPR) and oxidation (TPO) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Subsequent to 12 cycles, the catalyst CO2 capture performance was slightly lower than that of the fresh one (approximately 7%) and hardly changed in the next cycles. Furthermore, the use of the same temperature for SEESR reaction and CO2 desorption led to the highest adsorption capacity of the catalyst over multiple cycles.