Electrified-Catalytic Reforming using 3D printed catalysts for Biomethane production from biomass pyrolysis

Biomethane is a renewable vehicle fuel can be produced by the anaerobic digestion routine and the thermal conversion (gasification and/or pyrolysis) routine.

One of the technical challenges of the thermal process is catalytic reforming process to crack heavy molecule fractions (or tar) into light fractions. In this project, a novel electrical heating catalytic reforming process is proposed.

The resistance-heated reformer is prepared by firstly 3D printed a higher-electrical-resistance FeCrAl Alloy, then this 3D printed material is oxidized to form an Al2O3 layer on its surface.

This treated alloy is further impregnated with an excess of nickel nitrate solution then following by a higher temperature calcination. The manufactured 3D-printed catalyst will be tested at KTH existing bench scale reactor. Then a prototype of the novel reformer is constructed, commissioning and tested at KTH.