A series of nickel and nickel-palladium supported upon alumina catalysts were prepared in order to obtain a suitable catalyst that could be used in the process of producing hydrogen by partial oxidation and steam reforming of n-octane. Hydrogen production by partial oxidation and steam reforming (POSR) of n-octane was investigated over alumina-supported Ni and Ni-Pd catalysts. The process occurred by a combination of exothermic partial oxidation and endothermic steam reforming of n-octane. It was found that Ni/Al2O3 catalyst activity was high at high temperatures
and increased with the Ni loadings. Its activity, however, was not obviously increased when Ni loadings were over 5.0 wt%. Compared with nickel catalyst, the bimetallic catalyst of Ni-Pd/Al2O3 showed markedly increased activity and hydrogen selectivity at experimental conditions. The catalytic performance also became more stable when the palladium was added, which indicated that palladium plays an essential role in the catalytic action. The used catalysts of Ni-Pd/Al2O3 were regenerated three times by using air at space velocity of 2,000 h(-1) to obtain a long duration catalyst. Also, the typical catalyst was characterized by using SEM, BET, TG and ICP methods in detail.
Qi AD, "The Experimental Research of Producing Hydrogen from Methanol and Ethanol through Partial Oxidation Steam Reforming Method for Fuel Cell," Doctoral Thesis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1999
Wang YH, "The Research of Preparing Catalyst and Theory Analysis for Gasoline Partially Oxidizing Steam Reforming to Produce Hydrogen for Fuel Cell," Doctoral Thesis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2000