Hydrogen-Enriched Producer Gas Production and Chemical Conversion to Usable Gas Product Through Biomass Gasification Using NiO Nanoparticles Dispersed on SBA-15

NiO/SBA-15 with nano NiO particles and cavities, has high catalytic ability for gas conversion and favors the decomposition of large tar molecules derived from gasification due to its larger pore sizes. Therefore, in this work the bench-scale cedar gasification was achieved using NiO/SBA-15 as a reforming catalyst to produce H₂ rich producer gas. NiO/SBA-15 appeared to be suitable for H₂ rich (over 50 v/v% (N₂ free)) producer gas production, as well CH₄, C_nH_m and tar reduction. Although the amount of NiO did not affect the gas composition, tar removal was decreased when the amount of NiO was considerably increased. In addition, the conversion of the producer gas was also carried out at high and low temperatures in the presence or absence of steam, using NiO/SBA-15 as a gas conversion catalyst. Regardless of the conversion temperature, conversion of the producer gas was largely affected by steam. At 750 °C and no steam ≈14% CO₂ was converted to CO, whereas no CO₂ conversion occurred in the presence of steam. At low temperatures, the maximum CH₄ yield in the absence of steam was 23%, which was higher than that in the presence of steam (15%).