Hydrogen Production by Catalytic Reforming of Liquid Hydrocarbons

In this review, we are reporting the catalytic reforming of liquid hydrocarbon fuels carried out in our research group, covering the catalytic reforming of iso-octane and toluene as surrogate of gasoline, gasoline fuel processor system and steam reforming of n-hexadecane and decahydronaphthalene, main constituents of diesel. The commercial ICI reforming catalyst is prone to be poisoned by sulfur contained in iso-octane. We investigated various supported transition metal formulations and developed Ni/Fe/MgO/Al₂O₃ (KIST-5) catalyst with prolonged catalytic stability (>760 h), higher activity and sulfur tolerance ability over commercial ICI and HT catalysts for ATR reaction of iso-octane. We found that the concentration of CO can be reduced to <1,800 ppm by the gasoline fuel processor system charged with KIST-5 reforming catalyst, commercial HTS catalyst and KIST Pt–Ni/CeO₂ LTS catalyst. The addition of Rh metal to spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst as promoter was found to be very effective in inhibiting the deactivation of spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst by sintering of reduced Ni metal at high temperature during steam reforming of n-hexadecane. A 0.3 wt% Rh loading on spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst was optimized to have the best performance for steam reforming of n-hexadecane among the prepared catalysts. The addition of Rh to spc-Ni/MgAl catalyst also restricted the deactivation of the catalyst due to carbon formation at high reaction temperature. In view point of prolonged stability and higher activity, these developed reforming catalysts have a good scope in the reforming process of gasoline and diesel for hydrogen station and fuel processor system applications.