There is an increasing interest in hydrogen economy with main regard toward its generation from biomass or wastes can, because it reduces carbon dioxide emissions, as well as for other contaminants and contributes to an environmental friendly energy production. On this route, the catalytic steam reforming of bio-ethanol offers an highly attractive process for the conversion of renewable sources to hydrogen.
In this work, the steam reforming of waste ethanol over Ni supported catalysts was investigated in order to evaluate the influence of organic compounds (fusel oil) present in the “real” composition of ethanol produced by fermentation and distillation processes. The experiments were carried out at T = 923 K, atmospheric pressure and steam/carbon molar ratio (S/C) = 4. Results revealed that the presence of fusel oils influences both hydrogen yield and carbon formation.
Consideration on process mechanism, that can explain as reaction pathway influences the hydrogen production, was reported. Furthermore, the obtained data, compared with those from steam reforming of commercial grade ethanol, gave clear indication about the potentiality of this process to produce syn-gas for high temperature fuel cell application.