Steam reforming of phenol-PET solution over Ni/Al2O3 catalyst for hydrogen production

Abstract

Hydrogen, a sustainable and clean energy carrier, has gained interest as a potential candidate in the global energy scenario in the past few years. In the present study, dissolved waste PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in phenol was proposed for catalytic steam reforming toward production of hydrogen. Phenol as an unwanted liquid product can be found in the pyrolysis oil and/or in many industrial wastewater streams. Moreover, PET is one of the major products of plastic waste which constitutes a major hindrance to the environmental conservation efforts and causes harm to living organism. The 10 wt.% Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by impregnation method and characterized using BET-N2, TPD-CO2, TPR-H2, and SEM-EDX, showed the presence of nickel on acid type catalyst support with high surface area of γ-Al2O3. The experiment were carried out in a fixed bed reactor operated at atmospheric pressure using 3 wt.% PET in the feed with the water:phenol:PET ratio of (1:0.107:0.003), 0.2 gram of the catalyst and in temperature range of 600 to 800 oC. FTIR result shown no PET detected in the liquid product, indicated the PET achieved a complete conversion at the temperature range of this study. The maximum hydrogen yield was about 56.82 % at 800°C.