Understanding the Conversion Routes of Butanol in Steam Reforming Over Ni x /MgO Catalyst

A reaction scheme of butanol steam reforming (BSR) was proposed over mesoporous Ni/MgO with various Ni sizes (2.5-14.0 nm), revealing that the whole BSR procedure could be divided into two main pathways. Butanol adsorbed in a dissociative manner to produce butoxy, which could be further dehydrogenated to butyraldehyde. Butyraldehyde either decomposed to final products step by step or was oxidized to butyrate, which could decompose to CO2. The TPD, TPSR, and DRIFTS results showed that the performance of active sites on Ni particles was dominated by geometry configuration and electronic property. Compared to Ni0.04/MgO and Ni0.20/MgO, Ni0.12/MgO, with a moderate Ni nanoparticle size (∼5.3 nm), demonstrated the highest H2 yield in the BSR reaction.