Oxidative steam reforming of biomass tar model compound via catalytic BaBi0.05Co0.8Nb0.15O3− hollow fiber membrane reactor

Ceramic BaBi0.05Co0.8Nb0.15O3−δ (BBCN) perovskite hollow fiber membrane was successfully integrated with Ni based perovskite structure catalyst La0.8Sr0.2Ni0.8Fe0.2O3−δ (LSNF) to form a catalytic hollow fiber membrane reactor for oxidative steam reforming of toluene reaction. The results show that this membrane reactor achieves commendable performance. In detail, at low steam to carbon ratio (S/C=1), toluene conversion in various temperature 650–750 °C increased compared with catalyst only in typical steam reforming of toluene reaction. The enhancement is more obvious at higher temperature. In addition, this membrane reactor also shows high selectivity, obtaining H2 and CO as dominant products with H2/CO ratio of 2–3. Stability test was carried out at 700 °C for 50 h, and further characterized by TGA, SEM/EDX, XRD, XPS, TPO/TPR and FTIR techniques. The results show that membrane reactor has a good stability with around 60% conversion and lower carbon deposition. After stability test, BBCN hollow fiber membrane still maintained the perovskite phase structure, whereas the morphology and element state did not change too much. Hence, catalytic BBCN hollow fiber membrane reactor for oxidative steam reforming of tar displays great potential for future application.