Development of new nickel based catalyst for biomass tar steam reforming producing H2-rich syngas

Mayenite (Ca12Al14O33 or 12CaO.7Al2O3) was previously developed and applied as Ni support for biomass tar steam reforming in the absence and presence of H2S by our group because of its high oxygen restoring property in the structure [C. Li et al., Appl. Catal., B. 2008]. In this study, catalyst Ni/mayenite (mayenite as support) was prepared by impregnation method with nickel nitrate hexahydrate. Experiments were tested in a fixed-bed reactor, toluene as a tar model compound. The influence of the catalyst preparation and operating parameters (reaction temperature, steam to carbon ratio and space time) on catalyst activity and products selectivity were studied, and a long-time evaluation (more than 76 h) also exhibited excellent resistance to coking. These results were compared to these obtained by commercial-like catalysts: Ni/CaOx/MgO1−x and our previous NiO/mayenite, showing that Ni/mayenite exhibited excellent property for biomass tar reforming, with higher H2 yield than that of Ni/CaOx/MgO1−x, and higher CO selectivity than that of NiO/mayenite. For kinetic model, the first order reaction used for toluene with activation energy of 80.24 kJ.mol− 1 was coincident with literature data.