Hydrogen production by autothermal reforming of dodecane over strontium titanate based perovskite catalysts

Yttrium strontium titanate (YST) based perovskites with different substitutions of Ti by Ni, Co and Ru have been investigated for the autothermal reforming (ATR) of dodecane to produce hydrogen. The performance of these catalysts have been benchmarked against that of the Ni-Al2O3 commercial catalyst under varying temperature, steam to carbon and oxygen to carbon ratios. Even though high liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) has been used, all metal doped YST catalysts had shown relatively high hydrogen yield and performed as well as the commercial catalyst with consistently little lower performance for the cobalt based catalyst. Though the undoped yttrium strontium titanate performed well, its resistance to carbon formation was relatively lower than that of all metal doped YST catalysts. All catalysts were further tested for ATR activity under highly severe conditions, at a gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 160,000 1/h and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) of 18, using a fuel mixture of dodecane and xylene simulating sulfur-free jet fuel. The results showed stable performance for all catalysts with the activities following the order Ru-YST > Co-YST > Ni-YST > Ni-Al2O3. Ru-YST catalyst has shown the highest resistance to carbon formation and sintering.