Hydrogen via steam reforming of liquid biofeedstock

Abstract

Summary:This review paper examines the use of steam reforming to convert bio-liquids like ethanol, glycerol, butanol, vegetable oil, bio-oils and biodiesel into hydrogen gas. The focus of the research was to investigate the research being undertaken in terms of catalyst developments for the steam reforming of the above mentioned feedstock, and to determine the perspective opportunities in this area. Hydrogen production by steam reforming of biooil, ethanol, and pure glycerol has been widely investigated; several thermodynamic and catalytic investigations are available restricting new investigations. In contrast, hydrogen production from waste streams, vegetable oil, biodiesel and butanol is very recent and has room for further developments.

Hydrogen production from glycerol by Escherichia coli and other bacteria: An overview and perspectives

“…The high degree of reduction of carbon atoms in glycerol confers the ability to produce H 2 at higher yields when compared with glucose [15,16]. On the other hand, the theoretical yield is 7 mol H 2 for every mole glycerol according to the reaction [17]:…”

Monitoring Ni 0 and coke evolution during the deactivation of a Ni/La 2 O 3 –αAl 2 O 3 catalyst in ethanol steam reforming in a fluidized bed

“…Several literature reviews have discussed the use of both noble and non-noble metal catalysts supported on different oxides [9][10][11][12][13]. Although noble metal catalysts perform well in SRE (particularly Rh-based catalysts, due to its activity for CAC bond breakage [14]), their high cost hardly justifies their practical application.…”

Preparation of supported catalysts: A study of the effect of small amounts of silica on Ni/Al2O3 catalysts

“…NiO/Al 2 O 3 materials may have interest for their own catalytic activity [9,10,11,12,13], but are mostly synthesized industrially as precursors of Ni/Al 2 O 3 based supported metal catalysts for methanation [14,15] and other hydrogenation reactions [16] and for steam reforming and pre-reforming of natural gas [17], propane [18], ethanol [19,20], biomass tar [21,22] and biooils [20,23]. In previous studies we reported the characterization of Ni/Al 2 O 3 catalysts prepared with a silica-containing support and calcined (after impregnation) at 700 °C [24,25].…”