Alternative Energy

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Because of the lack of fossil fuel energy and increasing of looking for renewable and clean fuel, the alternative energy is widely studied and used to solve this problem. The biodiesel, ethanol and hydrogen are possible alternative energy used. Biodiesel is produced form transesterification of vegetable oil or animal fat and alcohol. The significant amount of glycerol, namely crude glycerol, was also produced from this process. Meanwhile, Hydrogen was used in many applications such as ammonia production, power generation in fuel cell and petroleum processing. Fossil fuel (i.e. methane) and ethanol reforming process were introduced as the feed stock to produce the hydrogen but both of them remain high demand for use as energy source. Therefore, the crude glycerol which is by-product from biodiesel production is the potential raw material. Reforming process of glycerol was introduced to convert into hydrogen.

Glycerol can be reformed by mean of steam reforming process and autothermal reforming process [1]. The general equation to describe glycerin reforming is presented in the equation shown below:

C3H8O3 + xH2O + yO2  aCO2 + bCO + cH2O + dH2 + eCH4 +…

The different of these two types is amount of oxygen and heat source. For autothermal reforming process, oxygen is fed to provide the require heat internally. While in the case of steam reforming process heat is supplied from external source. The condition for reaction is also important to obtain good conversion and hydrogen selectivity. It was found that steam to carbon ratio, oxygen to carbon ratio (in case of autothermal reforming) and reaction temperature affect to hydrogen yield [1]. Because the reforming is catalytic reaction, it w...

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...atio of 0.5. The second metal that gives the best performance will be selected as a modifier of Ni/Al2O3 to study the effect of second metal content on the activity of the catalyst. Moreover, the selected second metal will be used to clearly investigate the role of the metal in this reaction.

The catalyst will be also characterized by various techniques i.e. XRD (X-ray Diffractrometer), Temperature Programmed reduction (TPR), H2 chemisorptions and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA).

1.4 Expected Results

1. Ni/Al2O3 will be improved the performance in term of coke formation, selectivity of hydrogen and conversion of glycerol by adding the second metal

2. The suitable content of second metal and temperature that will be added to the Ni based catalyst will be investigated

3. Role of the selected second metal for promoting oxidative stream reforming of glycerol