Decreasing supplies of high quality crude oil and increasing demand for high quality distillates have motivated the interest in converting natural gas to liquid fuels, especially with the present boom in natural gas proven reserves. Nevertheless, one major issue is the curtailment of costs incurred in producing synthesis gas from natural gas, which account for approximately 60% of the costs used in producing liquid fuels. While there are three main routes to convert natural gas to syngas: steam reforming (SMR), partial Oxidation (POX) and auto-thermal reforming (ATR). Significant new developments and improvements in these technologies, established innovative processes to minimize greenhouse gases emission, minimize energy consumption, enhance syngas processes, adjust the desired H2/CO ratio and change the baseline economics. This article reviews the state of the art for the reforming of natural gas to synthesis gas taking into consideration all the new innovations in both processes and catalysis.

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Activated carbon (AC), prepared from sugarcane bagasse waste through a low-temperature chemical carbonization treatment, was used as a support for nano-TiO. TiO supported on AC (xTiO-AC) catalysts (x = 10, 20, 50, and 70 wt.%) were prepared through a mechano-mixing method. The photocatalysts were characterized by Raman, X-ray diffraction analysis, FTIR, S, field emission scanning electron microscope, and optical technique. The adsorption and photo-activity of the prepared catalysts (xTiO-AC) were evaluated using methylene blue (MB) dye. The photocatalytic degradation of MB was evaluated under UVC irradiation and visible light. The degradation percentage of the 100 ppm MB at neutral pH using 20TiO-AC reaches 96 and 91 after 180 min under visible light and UV irradiation, respectively. In other words, these catalysts are more active under visible light than under UV light irradiation, opening the possibility of using solar light for this application.

Conversion of two type of solid waste to silica–alumina structure that was promoted to a novel photocatalyst for water treatment.

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The performance of different Ni/Ce 1Àx Zr x O 2 (ss) catalysts of varying composition (x ¼ 0, 0.12, 0.18 and 0.26) were investigated for hydrogen production by ethanol steam reforming (ESR). All catalysts were prepared by co-precipitation method and characterized for their surface area, pore volume, structure and morphology using different techniques (N 2 -BET, XRD and HRTEM). The Ce 4+ /Ce 3+ redox couple in ceriacontaining catalysts is known to be responsible for the OSC of these materials, so, the redox behaviors of these materials were investigated by EPR. Reaction parameters were optimized by varying steam to ethanol molar ratio (6, 8 and 10) in order to produce hydrogen with low carbon monoxide formation as low as possible. The minimum amounts of CO and carbon deposited are observed over Ni/CeZr-8 catalyst at 1 : 10 ethanol-water ratios. The obtained data are compared with data obtained from oxidative steam reforming of ethanol (OSRE) using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant. The activity data indicated that hydrogen peroxide is an effective oxidant for OSRE over Ni/Ce 1Àx Zr x O 2 catalysts due to its ability to suppress CO formation and increase H 2 /CO ratio.

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