Aqueous phase reforming of biodiesel byproduct glycerol over mesoporous Ni-Cu/CeO2 for renewable hydrogen production

• Mesoporous Ni-Cu/CeO 2 was successfully synthesized to APR of biodiesel byproduct glycerol. • 1Ni2Cu/CeO 2 presented superior activity and multi-cycle stability in APR. • Cu element in catalysts effectively improved WGS and inhibited CH 4 formation. • Enhanced WGS and reduced methanation were achieved by in-situ CO 2 removal. Aqueous phase reforming (APR), regarded as one method for inexpensive H 2 production, was widely studied due to lower temperature and unnecessary to vaporize water and fuels. In this study, the mesoporous CeO 2 , regarded as a metal oxide carrier, was first prepared by colloidal solution combustion, and then the Ni-Cu bimetallic supported on mesoporous CeO 2 was successfully synthesized to investigate the catalytic performance in APR of biodiesel byproduct glycerol. The results show that the Cu element in the catalysts can effectively improve water–gas shift (WGS) reaction and inhibit the formation of methane, which increases the H 2 production rate from 125.08 to 195.57 µmol⋅min −1 ⋅g cat −1 . The higher reaction temperature is beneficial to the H 2 production rate, but not to H 2 selectivity. Kinetics analysis indicates that catalyst of 1Ni2Cu/CeO 2 + 0.2gCaO has the lowest apparent activation energy (29.86 kJ⋅mol −1 ). CaO is introduced as an absorbent to improve WGS reaction and reduce methanation reactions through in-situ CO 2 removal and capture. The reaction path and mechanism of APR of glycerol are also discussed in this paper.