Hydrogen-rich gas production by steam gasification of palm oil wastes over supported tri-metallic catalyst

The catalytic steam gasification of palm oil wastes for hydrogen-rich gas production was experimentally investigated in a combined fixed bed reactor using the newly developed tri-metallic catalyst. The results indicated that the supported tri-metallic catalyst had greater activity for the cracking of hydrocarbons and tar in vapor phase and higher hydrogen yield than the calcined dolomite in catalytic steam gasification of palm oil wastes. A series of experiments have been performed to explore the effects of temperature, steam to biomass ratio (S/B) and biomass particle size on gas composition, gas yield, low heating value (LHV) and hydrogen yield. The experiments demonstrated that temperature was the most important factor in this process; higher temperature contributed to higher hydrogen production and gas yield, however, it lowered gas heating value. Comparing with biomass catalytic gasification, the introduction of steam improved gas quality and yield, the optimal value of S/B was found to be 1.33 under the present operating condition. It was also shown that a smaller particle size was more favorable for gas quality and yield. However, the LHV of fuel gas decreased with the increasing S/B ratio and the decreasing biomass particle size. (C) 2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.