Nickel-catalyzed autothermal reforming of jet fuel surrogates: n-Dodecane, tetralin, and their mixture

The potential of a nickel-ceria-zirconia based catalyst was examined for autothermal reforming of n-dodecane, tetralin and their mixture into a hydrogen-rich product stream suitable for high-temperature fuel cells. n-Dodecane and tetralin were chosen as representative compounds for alkanes and bicyclic compounds in jet fuel. It was possible to reach conversions greater than 90% for both components, as long as sufficiently high oxygen concentrations were maintained in the feed. Tetralin gave larger yields of reforming products than n-dodecane. During the transient start-up phase of the reactor, large temperature excursions were observed, suggesting that the reaction starts with complete combustion of fuel, giving way to autothermal reforming after a few minutes on stream. These high-temperature excursions during reactor start-up are large enough to change the catalyst surface areas. Interestingly, the mixture of tetralin and n-dodecane did not behave as a linear combination of the two pure components, but showed reforming characteristics similar to pure tetralin. The non-linear behavior of the mixture provides a caveat that investigations of single component model compounds may not be able to capture the reforming behavior of more complex fuel mixtures.