Sorption-Enhanced Steam Reforming of Glycerol for Hydrogen Production over a NiO/NiAl2O4 Catalyst and Li2ZrO3-Based Sorbent

This paper describes the synthesis and application of a NiO/NiAl 2 O 4 catalyst and Li 2 ZrO 3 -based sorbent in sorption-enhanced glycerol steam reforming. A NiO/NiAl 2 O 4 catalyst was prepared by an incipient wetness impregnation and co-precipitation method using a rising pH technique, and the NiAl 2 O 4 crystalline spinel in the catalyst was formed under a high calcination temperature of 900 °C. The K-doped Li 2 ZrO 3 sorbent was prepared by the solid-state method. The synthesized catalyst and sorbent were evaluated for H 2 production and CO 2 removal, respectively. Sorption-enhanced reforming (SER) hydrogen production possessing high initial H 2 purity with CO 2 removal was carried out during a multi-cycle reaction/regeneration process under 550 °C and a steam/carbon ratio of 3. CO 2 sorption capacity of the Li 2 ZrO 3 sorbent was decreased with an increasing cycle number in SER. A kinetic model was proposed to understand the isothermal kinetics for multi-cycle SER CO 2 sorption over a K–Li 2 ZrO 3 sorbent, and the breakthrough curves for each cycle were fitted on the basis of the derived kinetic parameters.