Catalysis Today, Vol.303, 168-176, 2018
Effective hydrogen production from propane steam reforming using M/NiO/YSZ catalysts (M = Ru, Rh, Pd, and Ag)
This study has investigated the propane steam reforming (PSR) performance of M/Ni/YSZ catalysts (M = Ru, Rh, Pd, and Ag) for effective hydrogen production. To improve the catalytic performance, particularly with respect to the duration of the catalyst, YSZ (yttria-stabilized zirconia) is used as a support and noble metals such as Ru, Rh, Pd, and Ag are introduced as promoters. YSZ is used to suppress carbon deposition as it provides lattice oxygen to carbon coke on the catalyst. Noble metals provide synergy, assisting Ni metal in improving dehydrogenation. Preferentially, the PSR performance of 1.0 wt.% M/Ni/YSZ catalysts are measured to find which noble metal is suitable as a promoter. The result confirms that the Rh component is the best promoter for M/Ni/YSZ. This study also demonstrates the appropriate amount of Rh to use, based on the PSR performance over Ni/YSZ and 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 wt.% Rh/Ni/YSZ for 100 h. The results confirm that Ni/YSZ becomes deactivated at 76 h, but the catalysts with the Rh promoter have much higher durability. Thus, this study concludes that 0.5 wt.% Rh/Ni/YSZ is the best catalyst because it does not have excessive Rh content and also does not show any discernable decrease in the PSR performance. Moreover, the Rh/Ni/YSZ catalysts had a higher resistance to carbon deposition because of the presence of the Rh promoter, which could improve lattice oxygen mobility of the Rh/Ni/YSZ catalyst.