Catalytic decomposition of biogas: Influence of CH4 and CO2 partial pressures

Abstract

One of the most important uses of biogas is heat and electricity production from its direct combustion. An interesting alternative consists in using biogas as feedstock in the dry reforming of CH4 (DRM) to produce syn-gas that can be used to produce chemicals, liquid fuels, or H2. In DRM, efforts are devoted to avoid carbon deposition that eventually provokes catalysts deactivation. Recently, a novel approach called Catalytic Decomposition of Biogas (CDB) has been proposed. CDB promoted carbon growth in form of filamentous structures. These filamentous structures carry away the carbon from the catalyst particles keeping the leading face of metal particles accessible to reactant molecules and thus preventing catalyst deactivation. Scarce information can be found in the literature in which carbon production is taking into account. In this work, the effect of the CH4 and CO 2 partial pressures on the initial reaction rates was studied using a Ni/Al2O3 catalyst. Furthermore, a deactivation study was carried out in order to determine the experimental conditions at which carbon formation did not deactivate the catalyst.