Abstract
Lanthanum strontium titanate (LST) doped with nickel, ruthenium and cobalt was explored as reforming catalyst for simulated diesel. Commercial Ni/Al2O3 catalyst was used as a benchmarking catalyst. Activity tests under varying steam to carbon and oxygen to carbon ratios showed activity of the perovskite catalysts comparable to that of the commercial Ni/Al2O3 catalyst when tested under dodecane at GHSV of 30,000 1/h at 800 A degrees C. Subsequent to activity tests under sulfur free dodecane, some carbon formation was unexpectedly observed. Such carbon formation was believed to be mainly due to the non-uniform mixing resulting from high fuel rate. When reducing the fuel rate by 80% keeping the same GHSV and introducing 50 ppm sulfur, all catalysts, except Ru-LST, underwent drops in activity and sizable carbon formation. The ruthenium doped LST perovskite outperformed all other catalysts with excellent carbon formation resistance and tolerance to sulfur poisoning. Further reduction of fuel rate at the same GHSV under sulfur containing fuel helped alleviating the non-uniform mixing induced carbon formation. All catalysts showed no degradation over 20 h. Irrespective of the catalysts used, no or little carbon formation was estimated.