Hydrogen generation by catalytic gasification of motor oils in an integrated fuel processor

Catalytic gasification of waste motor oil (MO) for the generation of high purity of hydrogen and then integrated to a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is economically and environmentally attractive. Thus, the objective of the present work was to investigate a MO catalytic gasification for generating high-purity hydrogen with 15 wt.% NiO/Al₂O₃ catalysts. In a lab-scale fixed-bed downdraft experimental approach, catalytic gasification of MO was accompanied by a substantial production of syngas at 760–900 K. From the XANES spectra, most of the Ni(II) reduced to Ni(0) was found in the MO catalytic gasification process. The EXAFS data also showed that the central Ni atoms have a Ni–O and a Ni–Ni with bond distances of 2.04 ± 0.05 Å and 2.48 ± 0.05 Å, respectively. In addition to over 85% of syngas generation, approximately 8.35 × 10⁵ kcal h⁻¹ of thermal energy was recovered and cold gas efficiency (CGE) was 77–84% when the catalytic gasifier was operated at O/C atomic ratios between 1.1 and 1.3. The proposed syngas production unit can be integrated in a fuel processor (e.g. PEMFC), in order to separate and purify the syngas to yield a 99.99% hydrogen stream. Moreover, cost or benefit analyses of MO catalytic gasifiers of 10- and 20-TPD (tons per day) were also performed.