Experimental Investigation of Steam Reforming of Glycerol over Alumina Supported Nickel Catalysts (original) (raw)

The growing demand of hydrogen needs renewable sources of raw materials to produce it. Glycerol, by-product of biodiesel synthesis, could be a bio-renewable substrate to obtain hydrogen. Momentous amount of glycerol is produced as a byproduct during bio-diesel production by the transesterification of vegetable oils, which are available at low cost in large supply from renewable raw materials. As hydrogen is a clean energy carrier, conversion of glycerol to hydrogen is one among the most attractive ways to make use of glycerol. Production of hydrogen from glycerol is environmentally friendly because it adds value to glycerol generated from biodiesel plants. In this study, the catalytic production of hydrogen by steam reforming of glycerol has been experimentally performed in a fixed-bed reactor. The performance of this process was evaluated over 5wt%, 10wt%, and 15wt% Ni/Al2O3. The catalysts were prepared by the wet impregnation technique. For a comparative purpose, the steam reforming experiments were conducted under same operating conditions, i.e., reaction temperature ranging from 700°C to 900°C, atmospheric pressure and 1:9 glycerol to water molar ratio. Also the effect of glycerol to water ratio, metal loading, and the feed flow rate (space velocity) was analysed. The results showed that the hydrogen production increased with the increase in the treatment temperature. The highest amount of hydrogen produced was attained over 15wt% Ni/Al2O3 at 850 °C at 1:9 glycerol to water molar ratio. The catalyst Co/Al2O3,Cu/Al2O3 were prepared by wet impregnation technique and need to do activity test and compare the results with Ni/Al2O3.