Sorption enhanced steam reforming of biodiesel by-product glycerol on Ni-CaO-MMT multifunctional catalysts

•A Ca/MMT ratio of 5 contributes to high CO2 capture capacity and catalytic activity.•An optimum reaction condition of 600 °C and S/G = 3 produces a high purity H2 of 96%.•Steam beyond stoichiometric ratio promotes H2 yield and reduces thermal efficiency.

A series of multifunctional catalysts were derived from lamellar montmorillonite (MMT) via ultrasound-assisted cation-exchange method. They were characterized by N2 adsorption-desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), H2 temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), H2 pulse chemisorption, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The characterization results show that metal-support interaction (MSI) together with Ni and Ca dispersion interrelates with confinement effect of montmorillonite. The CO2 absorption capacity of CAT-5 (Ca/MMT molar ratio is 5) was still above 20.0% at the tenth cycle. The steam to glycerol molar ratio (S/G) and reaction temperature were investigated, and an S/G = 3 and a temperature of 600 °C were optimized. The hydrogen purity was significantly enhanced by the equilibrium shift of insitu CO2 removal at 600 °C. CAT-5 presents the best performance considering the synchronized absorption capacity and catalytic activity. Compared with CAT-M, CAT-5 shows higher stability in the multiple reaction-decarbonation cycles, which is due to the elevated sintering resistance of CaO derived from the confinement effect of lamellar structure.