Thermal and catalytic dry reforming and cracking of ethanol for hydrogen and carbon nanofilaments' production

Recent research findings published by the authors have shown that stainless steel can be used efficiently as a catalytic precursor for ethanol cracking and dry reforming. This paper provides a thermodynamic equilibrium analysis and experimental data on thermal and catalytic ethanol cracking and dry reforming reactions at various CO2/ethanol ratios.Both thermodynamic analysis and the experimental results with a carbon steel catalyst precursor revealed that the highest hydrogen and carbon yields were obtained at 550 °C. It was also found that carbon steel was an active catalyst for ethanol cracking at 550 °C and that thermal cracking and thermal reforming of ethanol were not favoured under these operating conditions. In both catalytic dry reforming and cracking of ethanol, carbon deposits were in the form of carbon nanofilaments.