Hydrogen Production Through Oxidative Steam Reforming of Acetic Acid over Ni Catalysts Supported on Ceria-Based Materials

Oxidative steam reforming allows higher energy efficiency and lowers coke deposition compared to traditional steam reforming. In this work, CeO2-based supports have been prepared with Ni as the active phase, and they were tested in the oxidative steam reforming of acetic acid. The influence of the O2/AcOH molar ratio (0–0.3) has been evaluated over Ni/CeO2. The results stated that by increasing oxygen content in the feeding mixture, acetic acid conversion increases, too, with a decrease in coke deposition and hydrogen yield. To have a proper balance between the acetic acid conversion and the hydrogen yield, an O2/AcOH molar ratio of 0.075 was selected to study the catalytic performance of Ni catalysts over different supports: commercial CeO2, a novel mesostructured CeO2, and CeO2-SBA-15. Due to higher Ni dispersion over the support, the mesostructured catalysts allowed higher acetic acid conversion and hydrogen yield compared to the nonporous Ni/CeO2. The best catalytic performance and the lowest coke formation (120.6 mgcoke·gcat−1·h−1) were obtained with the mesostructured Ni/CeO2. This sample reached almost complete conversion (>97%) at 500 °C, maintaining the hydrogen yield over 51.5% after 5 h TOS, being close to the predicted value by the thermodynamic equilibrium that is due to the synergistic coordination between Ni and CeO2 particles.