Hydrogen production by steam reforming of biomass tar over biomass char supported molybdenum carbide catalyst

•Mo2C/cedar char catalyst was prepared by using original biomass as carbon source.•Effects of temperature and Mo loading amount on the Mo2C formation were investigated.•As-prepared Mo2C catalyst showed good catalytic activity for steam reforming of tar.•A method to regenerate the deactivated Mo2C catalyst was found.

Catalytic steam reforming of tar derived from Japanese cedar pyrolysis was investigated over a prepared biomass char supported molybdenum carbide (Mo2C/BC) catalyst in a fixed-bed reactor. Mo2C/BC was prepared by in-situ solid state reaction, and characterized by XRD and SEM to study the effects of carburization temperature and Mo loading amount on Mo2C formation. The results show that Mo2C/BC catalyst was successfully prepared at a relatively low carburization temperature of 800 °C and the initial Mo loading amount for the preparation of this catalyst should be lower than 30 wt.%. The Mo2C/BC showed a good catalytic activity for the steam reforming of tar derived from biomass. In the case of Mo2C/BC with a Mo loading of 20 wt.%, the highest H2 yield was obtained, which is about 5 times higher than that of non-catalytic test. Mo2C/BC could be a promising catalyst in steam gasification of biomass to remove tar and produce H2-rich gas.

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