Malaysian Journal of Catalysis 2 (2017) 18-22 Steam reforming of Phenol-PET solution over Ni/Al2O3 catalyst for hydrogen production Bahador Nabgan a , Tuan Amran Tuan Abdullah a,b* , Muhammad Tahir b , Walid Nabgan a , Ibrahim Saeh c , Yahya Gambo a , Maryam Ibrahim a a Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Institute of Future Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia b Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM, Skudai, Johor Baharu, Johor, Malaysia c Environmental Research and Clean Energy Centre *Corresponding Author: tuanamran@utm.my Article history : Received 09 December 2016 Accepted 06 February 2017 GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT ABSTRACT Hydrogen, a sustainable and clean energy carrier, has gained interest as a potential candidate in the global energy scenario in the past few years. In the present study, dissolved waste PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in phenol was proposed for catalytic steam reforming toward production of hydrogen. Phenol as an unwanted liquid product can be found in the pyrolysis oil and/or in many industrial wastewater streams. Moreover, PET is one of the major products of plastic waste which constitutes a major hindrance to the environmental conservation efforts and causes harm to living organism. The 10 wt.% Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by impregnation method and characterized using BET-N2, TPD-CO2, TPR-H2, and SEM-EDX, showed the presence of nickel on acid type catalyst support with high surface area of γ-Al2O3. The experiment were carried out in a fixed bed reactor operated at atmospheric pressure using 3 wt.% PET in the feed with the water:phenol:PET ratio of (1:0.107:0.003), 0.2 gram of the catalyst and in temperature range of 600 to 800 o C. FTIR result shown no PET detected in the liquid product, indicated the PET achieved a complete conversion at the temperature range of this study. The maximum hydrogen yield was about 56.82 % at 800°C. Keywords: H2 Production, Steam reforming, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Phenol, Ni/Al 2O3 catalyst © 2017 Dept. of Chemistry, UTM. All rights reserved | eISSN 0128-2581 | 1. INTRODUCTION Recently, concerns regarding carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and their impact on the Earth’s climate are critical in many countries [1, 2]. Hydrogen has been identified as a suitable replacement to fossil fuel because of its abundant and regenerative feature [3-6]. The generation of hydrogen from bio sources, is increasing consideration as a CO2 unbiased source of energy [7]. The basis of this method is in the thermochemical alteration of biomass and the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere which counterbalances the capture of CO2 by the viable biomass [8]. For hydrogen generation, biomass existing at ample concentrations can be measured by correlation means [9]. According to literatures, the economically feasible technique for production of hydrogen is biomass fast pyrolysis complexed with bio-oil steam reforming [10-12]. The aqueous solution of bio-oil specifically required for the methane steam reforming. Thus, the thermal variability of the oxygenated compounds and particularly heterogeneous composition of the bio-oil should be mentioned [13]. Apart from its easy storage properties and transportation, bio-oil can serve as a sustainable renewable fuel source exhibiting more energy density than biomass. Bio-oil can be classified into (i) a water-monomer- rich phase which is include typically carbohydrate-derived mixtures (which contains 80% water and 20% organics [14]) and (ii) a hydrophobic-oligomer-phase collected generally of lignin-derived oligomers by water adding process [15, 16]. In recent times, hydrogen is produced from sources such as water, coal gasification, acetic acid, natural gas, ethanol, butanol, methane, glycerol, naphtha catalytic steam reforming and bio-oil [17]. Not only has the development of hydrogen production as a renewable fuel being a keen area of research, attention has also been given to conversion of waste materials to energy [18, 19], including plastics. Studies in this field are of great importance because it resolves numerous problems brought about by plastic waste together with other forms of waste, especially after their consumption. Among different types of plastic, polyethylene (PE) is widely used for numerous purposes, including packing and packaging materials with almost 63 wt.% of the total generated plastic waste [20]. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the main sources of packing materials such as bottles for mineral water and soft drinks all around the world. Consequently, any novel implementation or artificial use of waste PET would be a momentous relief to the surroundings [21] and this is one of the main emphasis of the current study. Therefore, generation of hydrogen from plastics is indeed a promising technology environmentally and economically [22]. Malaysian Journal of Catalysis http://mjcat.utm.my/ MJCat