Effect of the Light Alkane Content of Natural Gas on the Production of Hydrogen and Coke During the Dry Reform

Abstract

Dry reforming of ethane and propane were carried out with a nickel catalyst (3.92% by weight/γ-Al2O3) tocharacterize the effects of fed light alkanes on the reforming process of natural gas. Conversions of individualalkanes, representing 74.7% for ethane and 96.0% for propane at 1073 K, promoted hydrogen yields of 43.6% and66.0%, respectively. The conversion (81%) of a natural gas promoted a 95% hydrogen yield, where about 20% hadbeen obtained from the light alkanes. The reaction steps from alkane dry reforming where hydrogen wasproduced (alkane cracking) provided carbon formation with a yield of 23%. Akineticsevaluation, based onexperimental evidence that indicated two different sets of reaction steps for both ethane and propane processes,enabled the identification of the specificreaction rates of the cracking steps for each alkane. Reaction steps in thereforming process were considered as competitivereactions and thespecific cracking reaction rates of both lightalkanes were used to quantify the kineticselectivities of hydrogen, calculated as 95.42% for ethane and 76.99%for propane.