Catalytic steam reforming of toluene as model tar compound using Ni/coal fly ash catalyst

• Published in: Asia-Pacific journal of chemical engineering 2020-11, Vol.15 (6), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Lu, Min, Xiong, Zuhong, Li, Jiqing, Li, Xi, Fang, Kejing, Li, Tao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: carbon deposit; catalyst; coal fly ash; steam reforming; toluene
• ISSN: 1932-2135; 1932-2143
• DOI: 10.1002/apj.2529

Coal fly ash (CFA), a solid waste from power plants, was selected as the support of Ni‐based catalysts used for steam reforming of toluene in a fixed‐bed reactor. The CFA support was thermally pretreatment first, followed by chemical activation with different treatment time (6 h to 4 days) in 2‐mol/L HNO3 solution. Then, series low‐cost catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation. The prepared catalysts were characterized suitably by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauere–Emmette–Teller (BET), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), temperature programmed desorption (TPD), and Raman techniques. According to the catalyst characterization, the chemical pretreatment could improve the support property by adjusting the chemical composition. The Fe‐rich Fe‐Ni and Ni‐Co alloy was formed by H2 reduction on the Ni/CFA‐6h and Co‐Ni/CFA‐6h catalysts, respectively. In the catalytic steam reforming of toluene, the Ni/CFA‐6h had the best catalytic active among all monometallic catalysts, which could be attributed to the existence of Fe0.94Ni0.06 particles, and its performance could be further improved after partly replacing Ni by Co. The Co‐Ni/CFA‐6h catalyst exhibited the best ability of carbon deposit resistance, implying that its catalytic performance slightly lower than Ni/SiO2 was due to the too large SBET surface area gap.