Syngas production from CO2 reforming of glycerol by mesoporous Ni/CeO2 catalysts

In this paper, the mesoporous Ni/CeO2 catalyst with high specific surface area was prepared by the colloidal solution combustion method and used for the production of syngas by glycerol dry reforming (GDR). The thermodynamic analysis was conducted by using a non-stoichiometric methodology based on the minimization of Gibbs's free energy. The characterization results show that the higher the Ni content, the weaker the interaction between Ni and the CeO2 support. 5Ni/CeO2 shows the most consistent Ni dispersion and uniform particle size, and it has the best catalytic activity in the GDR and the conversion of glycerol can reach 84.1 % at 750 °C. Besides, all catalysts exhibited excellent stability during the 10 h catalytic process. The temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) results show that Ni loading ratio of 5 can reduce the production of filamentous carbon. Based on a kinetic model assuming a power law as a first-order reaction, the activation energy of the Ni-based catalyst for glycerol dry reforming was calculated.