Production of CO-rich hydrogen gas from glycerol dry reforming over La-promoted Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst

Dry reforming of glycerol has been carried out over alumina-supported Ni catalyst promoted with lanthanum. The catalysts were characterized using EDX, liquid N₂ adsorption, XRD technique as well as temperature-programmed reduction. Significantly, catalytic glycerol dry reforming under atmospheric pressure and at reaction temperature of 1023 K employing 3 wt%La-Ni/Al ₂O₃ catalyst yielded H₂, CO and CH₄ as main gaseous products with H₂:CO < 2.0. Post-reaction, XRD analysis of used catalysts showed carbon deposition during glycerol dry reforming. Consequently, BET surface area measurement for used catalysts yielded 10-21% area reduction. Temperature-programmed gasification studies with O ₂ as a gasification agent has revealed that La promotion managed to reduce carbon laydown (up to 20% improvement). In comparison, the unpromoted Ni/Al₂O₃ catalyst exhibited the highest carbon deposition (circa 33.0 wt%).