CO2 reforming of hydrocarbon gases

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Carbon dioxide is the main component of greenhouse gases (GHG), of which the emission has climbed a historically-highest record and resulted in global warming and thus, more frequent extreme and damaging climate activities due to the massive exploitation and utilization of fossil fuels by human being. To ban this deleterious impact on our environment, one has been developing carbon dioxide sequestration technologies including geological storage, deep-sea storage and chemical conversion, in order to reduce and finally eliminate carbon dioxide emission to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide reforming of methane and other light hydrocarbons, also known as dry reforming, converts carbon dioxide into synthesis gas from which a number of commodity chemicals and products are synthesized, forming one of the chemical utilization routes of carbon dioxide. However, the obstacle that prevents its commercialization is the lack of an industrially-satisfactory catalyst for dry reforming. To remove this obstacle, the strategy that Dr. Hui Wang at University of Saskatchewan uses is to first develop laboratory scale, highly active, ultra stable and well selective catalysts, to evaluate the acceptable catalyst under actual feedstock or simulated actual feedstock containing possible contaminants, to make industrial shaped catalyst, to study catalyst performance including mass transfer and heat transfer in larger scale, and to model the process for further scaling up. Thanks to the support from NSERC's Discovery grant, Dr. Wang and his students have successfully developed a composite catalyst that has undergone 2000 h life test and shown high activity and selectivity but no significant deactivation. Following this success, this project, also supported by NESERC's Dicovery grant, studies the catalyst performance in actual industrial feedstock, develops methods of industrial catalyst (pellet catalyst) preparation, evaluates the industrial catalyst, and models the process. In addition to the development of a commercial carbon dioxide conversion technology, the research work will provide opportunities of training high quality personnel in the areas of reaction engineering, catalyst development and GHG emission control for Canada.