Development of Ni- and CaO-based mono- and bi-functional catalyst and sorbent materials for Sorption Enhanced Steam Methane Reforming: Performance over 200 cycles and attrition tests

Sorption Enhanced Steam Methane Reforming (SESMR) involves carbon-capture and natural gas exploitation to produce H2. A 2-particle system (Ni-catalyst and CaO-based sorbent particles), and a CSCM (obtained by granulating powders of that 2-particle system) were studied in multicycle SESMR/regeneration at atmospheric pressure, with reforming at mild temperature (650 °C) and oxidative regeneration under pure CO2 (925 °C), conditions relevant for hypothetical industrial-scale SESMR. 200 cycles (>500 h non-stop per test) were performed for both systems in a packed bed reactor, highlighting a satisfactory catalytic stability and a decrease in sorption capacity explained by after-test characterizations (PXRD, BET-BJH methods, SEM-EDS, TEM). In view of industrial applications in fluidized-beds, resistance to attrition of investigated materials was determined according to ASTM D5757-11, at SESMR/regeneration process temperatures: results compared well with a reference Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) catalyst, purposely designed for applications in industrial fluidized-beds.