High pressure ammonia decomposition on Ru-K/CaO catalysts

Salvador Sayas, Natalia Sanchez Morlanes, Sai P. Katikaneni, Aadesh Harale, Bandar Solami, Jorge Gascon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

Potassium-promoted ruthenium supported on CaO is a very efficient catalyst for ammonia decomposition, surpassing the performance of other Ru-supported solids. At an optimum Ru loading of 3% wt, catalysts with a K/Ru atomic ratio of 0.9 showed the best catalytic performance under a wide range of operating conditions, P = 1-40 bar, T = 250-550 °C and WHSV = 9000-30 000 mL g-1 h-1. Although NH3 conversion levels decrease considerably upon increasing the reaction pressure (X550 °C, 40 bar = 0.8), high pressure ammonia decomposition offers the possibility of COx-free compressed hydrogen and hydrogen productivities and TOFs 40 times bigger than when applying atmospheric pressure. Extensive characterization by CO chemisorption and HR-TEM demonstrates that potassium promotion increases metal dispersion by decreasing the Ru particle size. Electronic effects derived from the close proximity between K and Ru result in a decrease in the reaction apparent activation energy, as shown by a detailed kinetic analysis.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)5027-5035
Number of pages9
JournalCatalysis Science and Technology
Volume10
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 29 2020

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: Saudi Aramco is gratefully acknowledged for financial support.

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