K. K. Pant
Indian Institute of Technology , India
Title: Green catalytic tri-reforming of methane using flue gas into synthesis gas for fuels and petrochemicals production
Biography
Biography: K. K. Pant
Abstract
CO2 is the cheapest source of carbon. Considering its impact on climate change, CO2 utilization is being considered as sustainable way for fuels and petrochemicals production. Methane tri-reforming is one such catalytic process which converts CO2 into synthesis gas, which can be further converted into fuels and chemicals. In this context, Ni based catalysts using support materials Al2O3, MgO, CeZrO2 and SBA-15 were prepared by wet impregnation method and characterized by EDX, XRD, BET, TPR, TEM, TGA, SEM and Pulse Chemisorption. Performance of the catalysts was tested for tri-reforming process using fixed bed reactor set-up under reaction condition of 800oC and 1 atm. Among all tested catalysts, Ni/Al2O3 emerged as the most effective catalyst as its initial CH4, CO2 and H2O conversions were found to be about 84%, 75% and 80% respectively. It could be attributed to strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) due to NiAl2O4 formation which caused small Ni particle formation and its high dispersion. Ni/MgO despite having SMSI showed lowest activity. It was mainly because of solid solution formation between NiO and MgO; which although caused SMSI but made NiO extremely difficult to reduce as evident by its TPR profile. Ni/CeZrO2 and Ni/SBA-15 were found to have moderate activity for tri-reforming reactions. Although, both catalysts displayed excellent resistance against deactivation due to coke formation as observed from TGA and SEM. On the other hand, Ni/Al2O3 was found to have 15 wt.% coke deposition after 6 h experimental run.