Executive Summary : | Continuous increase in population and rapid industrial growth have been intensifying India’s energy demand. India depends heavily on the import of crude oil and natural gas to meet its energy demand. Moreover, large-scale burning of fossil fuels (coal, petroleum oil products and natural gas) results in CO₂ emission which is often related to global warming and climate change. Such scenario calls for alternative clean energy source. One alternative is biomass. Biomass is available in abundance in India and is currently being considered as future energy source. Among the various techniques, biomass gasification is a promising technique to utilize biomass due to its higher energy efficiency. Moreover, biomass gasification produces syngas, which is a gaseous mixture of CO and H₂. Syngas is an important platform chemical which can be used to produce methanol, DME, chemicals and liquid fuels through well-established industrial process. Moreover, syngas can also be used for heating and electricity generation as well. However, the formation of tar as a side-product along with syngas is a serious problem in biomass gasification. It deteriorates the quality of syngas and brings various operational issues. Tar can be converted into hydrogen and syngas in steam reforming process using a catalyst. The catalysts developed so far undergo deactivation due to metal sintering and carbon deposition. The proposed research work aims to develop hydrotalcite-derived Ni catalysts for steam reforming of tar model compounds. The performance of the catalysts will be tested experimentally and will be related to their properties by carrying out detailed catalyst characterisation. Moreover, the possibility of using CO₂ with or without steam to reform tar compounds will also be explored in this proposed project. |