Hydrogen Production via Glycerol Dry Reforming over La-Ni/Al2O3 Catalyst

Glycerol (a bio-waste generated from biodiesel production) has been touted as a promising bio-syngas pre-cursor via reforming route. Previous studies have indicated that carbon deposition is the major perform-ance-limiting factor for nickel (Ni) catalyst during glycerol steam reforming. In the current paper, dry (CO2)-reforming of glycerol, a new reforming route was carried out over alumina (Al2O3)-supported non-promoted and lanthanum-promoted Ni catalysts. Both sets of catalysts were synthesized via wet co-impregnation procedure. The physicochemical characterization of the catalyst showed that the promoted catalyst possessed smaller metal crystallite size, hence higher metal dispersion compared to the virgin Ni/Al2O3 catalyst. This was also corroborated by the surface images captured by the FESEM analysis. In addition, BET surface area measurement gave 92.05m/g for non-promoted Ni catalyst whilst promoted catalysts showed an average of 1 to 6 % improvement depending on the La loading. Reaction studies at 873 K showed that glycerol dry reforming successfully produced H2 with glycerol conversion and H2 yield that peaked at 9.7 % and 25 % respectively over 2wt % La content. The optimum catalytic performance by 2%La