Enhanced NiO-CaO-based multifunctional material pellets with Ce and La oxides on aluminosilicate support for sorption-enhanced chemical looping steam reforming of glycerol

Abstract

Multifunctional materials in pellet form composed of NiO-CaO-based aluminosilicate support have been developed for hydrogen (H2) production via sorption-enhanced chemical looping steam glycerol reforming (SE-CL-SGR). The effect of CaO content (50–70 wt%) and an addition of promoter (CeO2 and La2O3) on material properties and H2 production performances were investigated. A good H2 production of 90 %v/v purity for 75 mins has been achieved from 15 wt% NiO, 70 wt% CaO, and 30 wt% aluminosilicate support (15Ni(70Ca.30S)) pellets. However, it totally showed a loss of CO2 adsorption ability by the 5th cycle as a formation of carbon caused the pellet cracking. Rare-earth oxides such as CeO2 and La2O3 have been incorporated into the structure to improve the mechanical properties. An addition of 5 wt% La2O3 (5La-15Ni(70Ca.30S)) provides superior H2 production performance to that with CeO2 and without rare-earth as 95 %v/v H2 purity can be constantly produced for 60 mins throughout five testing cycles. These enhancements indicate that the CeO2 and La2O3 modifications effectively improve the multifunctional material pellet performance and stability, making it suitable for large-scale hydrogen production applications.