Hydrocarbons can be reformed into synthesis gas for a variety of applications, including solid oxide fuel cells. Certain fuel cell applications (e.g. transportation, remote power generation) may be able to utilize liquid fuels like diesel. These fuels contain sulfur and aromatic compounds that produce excessive carbon deposits and rapidly deactivate traditional supported metal catalysts. Therefore, reforming these fuels requires a catalyst with thermal and mechanical stability, as well as resistance to deactivation in the presence of contaminants. Previous work has demonstrated that substituting active metals into thermally stable oxide structures can reduce catalyst deactivation from sintering, sulfur poisoning, and carbon formation. Pyrochlore-type catalysts (A2B2O7) have demonstrated significantly greater performance and stability over traditional catalysts, attributed to, among other things, their resistance to the formation of carbon deposits. Further improvement on these materials could be accomplished with a greater understanding of how and where the carbon deposits on the catalyst surface. With this knowledge, fine tuning of the catalyst properties can be achieved by modifying the formula by doping various promoter metals into the A- and/or B-site. In this study the carbon formed as a function of time during partial oxidation of n-tetradecane , a diesel surrogate, was examined for a Rh-substituted pyrochlore with the formula La2-xCaxZr2-y-zRhyYzO7-d.

Reforming of a liquid fuel using a Rh-substituted pyrochlore: A carbon formation study

249th National Meeting (2015)

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