Steam reforming of toluene over Ni-Co/modified-activated carbon catalyst for hydrogen production: Thermodynamic and experimental analysis

An integrated thermodynamic and experimental analysis of steam reforming of toluene (SRT) over Ni-Co/modified-palm kernel shell activated carbon (AC) catalysts for H-2 production has been investigated. The catalyst samples, synthesized with different AC support modifications methods (i.e., HNO3 reflux and H2O2 aging) and impregnation, are characterized by BET, TGA, FESEM-EDX, TEM, XRD, H-2-chemisorption and TPO spectroscopies. Aspen Plus (R) simulation software is employed to perform the thermodynamic analysis to investigate the effect of wide range of operating parameters such as temperature (373-1473 K), pressure (1-30 atm) and steam-to-carbon (S/C) molar ratio (1-9) on product distribution using Gibbs free energy minimization. Optimum conditions of SRT with 86.4% H-2 yield and complete toluene conversion are attained at 973 K, S/C ratio of 5 and atmospheric pressure. Next, the catalytic performance of Ni-Co/modified-AC for enhancing SRT to H-2 is conducted in a fixed-bed reactor at selected conditions. It is revealed that Ni-Co/ACP catalyst confers 82.0% and 91.7% of H-2 yield and toluene conversion, respectively. The results of thermodynamic simulation and experimental testing strongly corroborate the role of Ni-Co/ACP as a high-performance catalyst to enhance catalytic conversion of SRT.