Enhancing Hydrogen Production via Ammonia-Assisted Decomposition of Short-Chain Alcohols

Carbon deposition is a significant issue for hydrogen (H 2 ) production from alcohol-based hydrogen carriers such as methanol (CH 3 OH) and ethanol (C 2 H 5 OH). In this work, we propose an ammonia (NH 3 )-assisted decomposition strategy for short-chain alcohols and investigate the catalytic performance of a gadolinium-doped ceria-supported Ni–Fe catalyst (denoted as Ni–Fe/GDC) for CH 3 OH or C 2 H 5 OH decomposition with NH 3 assistance. The results show that the presence of NH 3 effectively suppresses the carbon deposition typically associated with alcohol decomposition and increases the H 2 production rate by 131% in CH 3 OH/NH 3 and 185% in C 2 H 5 OH/NH 3 feed gases as compared to the individual CH 3 OH and C 2 H 5 OH decompositions at 800 °C, respectively. There exists a synergistic effect between the alcohol decomposition and NH 3 decomposition reactions. This work demonstrates the promising potential of H 2 production via the ammonia-assisted decomposition of short-chain alcohols and provides a valuable reference for other coking-prone scenarios.