Hydrothermal gasification of glucose using Raney nickel and homogeneous organometallic catalysts

Catalytic gasification of biomass to fuel gaseous in sub and super critical water is a promising method for production of sustainable energy. In this paper, a microreactor has been utilized to study the hydrothermal gasification of glucose in the presence of transition metal chelates consisting of nickel(II) acetylacetonate (Ni(acac)2), cobalt(II) acetylacetonate (Co(acac)2), iron(III) acetylacetonate (Fe(acac)3) and Raney-nickel particles. The reaction temperature and pressure were 310–350 °C and 100–210 bar, respectively. Effects of addition of catalysts, reaction temperature, reaction time, glucose concentration and liquid water volume fraction on the amount of the generated gas as well as its composition were investigated. Results indicated that the presence of the organometallic compounds can slightly facilitate the rate of decomposition of glucose. This enhancement in reaction rate was more pronounced at higher concentrations of the feed (~ 0.65 M) compared with lower concentrations (~ 0.06 M). In contrast to these homogeneous catalysts, Raney-nickel catalyst improved the gas yield by a factor of 3 to 5. It has been observed that the amount of the produced gas almost doubles when the batch time increased from 3 to 30 min, while no significant change was observed from 30 to 60 min. Finally, remarks on optimization of the amount of added water into the reaction vessel are provided.