Treatment of biomass-derived synthesis gas using commercial steam reforming catalysts and biochar

The destruction of tars is a crucial technological barrier for the development and further commercialization of biomass gasification. It is known that the dec omposition of tar compounds using catalysts is a suitable solution to this problem. Biocha r, w ich is generated during gasification, is also a potential catalyst f or tar destruction. Biochar and three commercial steam reforming catalysts were evaluate d for tar removal using toluene as a model tar compound. Two of the commercial catalysts were nick l based (Reformax 250 and Hifuel R-110) and one was platinum based (NextechA). The biochar was generated during switchgrass gasification in a down draft gasif ier at the OSU thermochemical conversion facility. Tar destruction experiments w ere performed in a bench scale fixed bed reactor between 600 and 800 C under atmospheric pressure using a synthetic gas mixture with similar composition to the syngas gener ated from switchgrass gasification. Toluene conversion results showed that the biochar perfor mance was comparable to the commercial catalysts and Reformax was the most active of the tested catalysts. The activation energy of toluene steam reforming ove r these catalytic materials was found to be 50.26 kJ/mol for Reformax 250; 51.18 kJ/mol for Hifuel R-110; 59.44 40 kJ/mol for NextechA and 61.59 kJ/mol for biochar. Catalyst characte riza ion by SEM, XPS, TGA, and FTIR was also conducted on the used catalysts. Accordi ng to the XPS spectra, graphitic carbon was found on all catalysts and according t o TGA results Hifuel R-110 is the catalyst with the highest tendency toward coke form ation, followed by biochar.

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