Catalyst design for methane steam reforming

• Catalysts with 10 wt% Ni/SiO2/γ-Al2O3/α-Al2O3 and/SBA-15 were tested.
• Catalyst activity tests were conducted under same operating conditions for MSR.
• 10 wt% Ni/SBA-15 was significant on the basis of activity and carbon resistance.
• Ce promotion resulted in enhanced activity and carbon resistance among B, Zr and Mo.
• Kinetics and carbon deposition studies were conducted for MSR over Ce/Ni/SBA-15.

Commercial syngas production via methane steam reforming is conventionally carried out over Ni catalyst supported on semiconductor oxides such as Al2O3 and SiO2. The present work reports empirical verification of catalyst design for methane steam reforming carried out at relatively low steam-to-carbon feed ratio (2:1–2:1) and compares the behavior among SiO2, SBA-15 (mesoporous silica), γ-Al2O3 and α-Al2O3 supported Ni catalyst. In addition promoters such as B, Ce, Mo and Zr were assessed. SBA-15 and Ce emerged to be significant support and promoter respectively. However there seems to be an optimum Ni wt% loading for a given support which was found to be 10 wt% for SBA-15. The investigations revealed that MSR over 1 wt% Ce/10 wt% Ni/SBA-15 at S:C = 1–2 at atmospheric pressure and 1073 K resulted in 92–99% methane conversion with higher H2 to CO ratio and highly resistant to carbon deposition.

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