Low Temperature Methane Steam Reforming for SOFC

The properties of flowerlike microspheres ceria based nickel catalyst for low temperature methane steam reforming were studied. The ceria microspheres were prepared by hydrothermal method. Catalyst of nano-sized nickel oxide particles based on flowerlike cerium oxide microspheres with high disperse were prepared to achieve simultaneous dehydrogenation of methane and water molecules on multi-active sites. The catalyst was characterized by means of Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD). Results showed that this special catalyst NiO/CeO₂ had high activity and stability for methane steam reforming reaction below 600^oC, improve the resistance of carbon deposition catalyst greatly. The stability of the catalyst was reached more than 1000 hours. The conversation of methane under 590^oC was above 90%. The tests of the influence of different steam to carbon ratios on activity and selectivity of catalyst showed that 1.5~2.5 steam to carbon ratio was an ideal choice.

During the running of micro-tube methane steam reformer with this catalyst, the methane conversion of 555^oC kept over 25mol.%, the selectivity of H₂, CO, CH₄ and CO₂was 60 mol.%, 10 mol.%, 12 mol.% and 18 mol.%�B

(This work was supported by National Key Basic Research Plan (973), No.2012CB215402 )