Activity of Ni–Cu–Al based catalyst for renewable hydrogen production from steam reforming of glycerol

•Ni–Cu–Al catalyst for hydrogen production was synthesized by rising pH technique.•Experimental data were analyzed with non-stoichiometric thermodynamic calculation.•Catalyst deactivation due to carbon deposits in glycerol steam reforming was found.•Carbon removal was analyzed by TGA experiment during medium temperature oxidation.•Reforming was tested by separability kinetics of rate law and catalyst deactivation.

In this study, the activity of Ni–Cu–Al based catalyst for renewable hydrogen production from glycerol steam reforming has been evaluated in a continuous flow fixed-bed reactor under atmospheric pressure at 500–600 °C. The catalyst synthesized by the co-precipitation method with rising pH technique was characterized by the elemental analysis, Brenauer–Emmett–Teller (N2-BET) adsorption method, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The thermodynamic analysis for glycerol steam reforming was conducted by using a non-stoichiometric methodology based on the minimization of Gibbs free energy. The obtained results revealed that the great quantity of hydrogen is produced at excess water and the formations of CH4 and CO in the glycerol steam reforming were almost negligible. The deactivation of catalyst due to the formation of carbon residues was observed. The carbons removal was measured by TGA experiment during medium temperature oxidation conditions. The kinetics on glycerol steam reforming was described by means of the separability concept of reaction rate law and deactivation model, and the kinetic parameters were calculated.

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