Catalytic reforming/cracking of biomass derived tar using activated carbon supported iron catalyst for clean producer gas / Nur Hanina Malek

Biomass-derived producer gas has high potential to replace natural gas as gaseous fuel in internal combustion engine (ICE) but the presence of tar hinders its utilization for commercialization and requires effective catalytic gas cleaning. Nevertheless, a serious catalyst deactivation due to agglomeration of active metal particles on support has been overlooked in much research. The objective of this study is to utilize activated carbon supported iron (Fe/AC) catalyst prepared by a new approach of impregnating iron from an aqueous solution onto the activated carbon (AC) in a stepwise manner. Novel catalyst was assessed in catalytic reforming of pyrolyzed tar derived empty fruit bunches (EFB) to compare its superiority with catalyst prepared by the conventional one-step impregnation method. Reforming conditions at different range of reaction temperature, steam/carbon (S/C) ratio and equivalence air ratio (ER) were also assessed.