Effect of calcium addition on Mg-AlOx supported Ni catalysts for hydrogen production from pyrolysis-gasification of biomass

Producing hydrogen from catalytic gasification of biomass represents an interesting process to facilitate the development of hydrogen economy. However, the design of catalyst is a key challenge for this technology. In this work, cost-effective Ca added Ni-based catalysts were developed and studied for producing hydrogen with a fixed-bed reactor. The relationship between Ca addition and the performance of catalyst in terms of the yield of hydrogen and catalyst deactivation (metal sintering and coke formation) was studied. The results showed that hydrogen production was largely enhanced when Ca was added, as the yield of hydrogen was enhanced from 10.4 to 18.2 mmol g(-1) sample in the presence of Ca-based catalyst. However, the yield and concentration of hydrogen were kept at similar levels with the increase of Ca. By normalizing the yield of hydrogen in relation to the amount of Ni presented inside the catalyst, the hydrogen yield per mole of nickel was increased from 50 g Ni-1(0.1Ca catalyst) to 80 g Ni-1 (0.8Ca catalyst) when the Ca addition was increased from 10 mol% to 80 mol%. TPO-FTIR analysis of the experimented catalysts showed that 0.5 Ca catalyst had the highest amount of coke formation, in particular, most of the deposited carbons were amorphous which could deactivate the catalyst seriously. It is therefore concluded that the addition of cost-effective Ca could enhance the yield of hydrogen from biomass gasification. However, the concentration of Ca in the catalyst needs to be controlled to mitigate the generation of coke on the used catalyst.