Effect of W incorporation on the product distribution in steam reforming of bio-oil derived acetic acid over Ni based Zr-SBA-15 catalyst

Zirconia incorporated SBA-15 type mesoporous material was synthesized following a one-pot hydrothermal route, characterized and used as the catalyst support in the synthesis of Ni and bi-metallic Ni-W based catalysts. Performances of these catalysts were tested in steam reforming of AcOH. Catalytic activity tests proved that the performances of SBA-15 and Zr-SBA-15 supported Ni based catalysts were highly stable and they also showed very high activity in steam reforming of acetic acid, giving complete conversion at temperatures over 700 °C. Product distributions were shown to be strongly influenced by the composition of the catalyst. In the case of 5Ni@Zr-SBA-15, syngas produced at 750 °C contained about 54% H2, 22% CO, 20% CO2 and 4% CH4. These results indicated that decarboxylation reaction of AcOH to CH4 and CO2 was minimized over this catalyst. Results were considered to be highly promising for the production of hydrogen rich syngas. It was most interesting to observe that modification of this catalyst by the addition of tungsten caused significant changes in the product distribution. For instance, syngas produced over 5Ni-50W@Zr-SBA-15 at the same reaction conditions, contained equimolar quantities of H2 and CO (about 47.5% each) with very small amounts of CO2 and CH4 (about 3% and 2%, respectively). Production of a syngas with such a composition was considered to be highly attractive from the point of view of a resource gas for dimethyl ether and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.