Title: Low temperature steam reforming of bio-ethanol over Ni/CuO-Al₂O₃ catalysts

Authors: A. Venugopal, M. Sudhakar, R. Kishore, Reema Sarkari, J. Ashok, F.B. Noronha, S.M. De Lima, A. Hari Padmasri

Addresses: Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500 607, India. ' Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500 607, India. ' Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500 607, India. ' Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500 607, India. ' Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad 500 607, India. ' Catalysis Laboratory, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, Av. Venezuela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ' Catalysis Laboratory, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, Av. Venezuela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ' Department of Chemistry, Osmania University College for Women, Koti, Hyderabad 500 095, India

Abstract: Various loadings of Ni (5-20wt%) supported on CuO-Al₂O₃ mixed oxide catalysts has been explored for the low temperature steam reforming of bio-ethanol. It has been found that 10wt%Ni/CuO-Al₂O₃ catalyst showed relatively high ethanol conversion as well as selectivity towards H₂ (∼74%) compared to other catalysts. The better performance of the 10wt%Ni/CuO-Al₂O₃ is explained based on the physico-chemical characteristics of the catalysts determined by BET – surface area, X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), O₂ pulse chemisorption, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and differential thermal/thermo gravimetric (DT/TGA) analyses.

Keywords: bioethanol; nickel; copper; aluminium; XPS; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; oxygen pulse chemisorption; TPR; temperature programmed reduction; steam reforming; nanotechnology; biofuels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNT.2010.034722

International Journal of Nanotechnology, 2010 Vol.7 No.9/10/11/12, pp.1188 - 1203

Published online: 17 Aug 2010 *

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