Performance of an Auto-Reduced Nickel Catalyst for Auto-Thermal Reforming of Dodecane

To investigate the catalytic performance of diesel reforming catalysts for production of hydrogen gas, Ni-Al catalyst was prepared by the polymer-modified incipient method (NA10-PM). NA10-PM showed excellent catalytic performance and economic feasibility in the auto-thermal reforming reaction, compared to other commercially available catalysts. In particular, auto-reduced NA10-PM showed higher dodecane conversion and similar selectivity at 750 degrees C compared to H-2-reduced NA10-PM. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies showed that the fresh state of NA10-PM initially automatically reduced by product gases through thermal decomposition of dodecane, and then NiAl2O4 was completely reduced to metallic nickel by the CO and H-2 gases produced during the reaction. Additionally, catalytic performance of auto-reduced NA10-PM were investigated at varying steam/carbon molar ratio (S/C) and oxygen/carbon molar ratio (O-2/C) in order to determine the optimum conditions of the auto-thermal reforming reaction. The conversion of dodecane over auto-reduced NA10-PM catalyst was remarkable (93%) and increased during the reaction, under conditions of S/C = 1.23, O-2/C = 0.25, and gas hourly space velocity of 12,000 h(-1) at 750 degrees C. The results of this study demonstrated that the auto-reduced NA10-PM catalyst was applied successfully for auto-thermal reforming of dodecane.