Steam reforming of gaseous by-products from bitumen oil using various supported Ni-based catalysts

ABSTRACT

The steam reforming process is an efficient route for producing hydrogen gas which, along with lower costs compared to other methods, has an acceptable efficiency rate. In this study, by using an experimental setup we tried to investigate the effect of various catalysts on the amount of tar and produced hydrogen from steam reforming of gas by products from bitumen oil and to introduce effective parameters in the process of hydrogen production. As temperature increased, the amount of tar conversion to gas increases and the amount of hydrogen surged accordingly. With increase in temperatures from 400 to 900°C, tar elimination also improved from 39% to 99% for Ni/Al₂O₃, from 30.5 to 93.1 for Ni/olivine and from 25.7 to 83.6 for Ni/Fe₂O₃. As a result, it was concluded that the Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst has been more successful in eliminating the tar, although there is not much difference between the activities of the three catalysts.

KEYWORDS:

• bitumen oil
• Ni-based catalysts
• steam reforming
• tar elimination
• temperature