Nickel catalyst poisoning

Lombard et al. reported frill regeneration of nickel catalysts poisoned by sulfur through treatment with pure steam at 720 °C for 15 h [276]. 

This reaction is an undesirable side reaction in the manufacture of hydrogen but utilised as a means of removing traces of carbon monoxide left at the end of the second stage reaction. The gases are passed over a nickel catalyst at 450 K when traces of carbon monoxide form methane. (Methane does not poison the catalyst in the Haber process -carbon monoxide Joes.)... 

A selective poison is one that binds to the catalyst surface in such a way that it blocks the catalytic sites for one kind of reaction but not those for another. Selective poisons are used to control the selectivity of a catalyst. For example, nickel catalysts supported on alumina are used for selective removal of acetjiene impurities in olefin streams (58). The catalyst is treated with a continuous feed stream containing sulfur to poison it to an exacdy controlled degree that does not affect the activity for conversion of acetylene to ethylene but does poison the activity for ethylene hydrogenation to ethane. Thus the acetylene is removed and the valuable olefin is not converted. 

Figure 8.3.1 is a typical process diagram for tlie production of ammonia by steam reforming. Tlie first step in tlie preparation of tlie synthesis gas is desulfurization of the hydrocarbon feed. Tliis is necessary because sulfur poisons tlie nickel catalyst (albeit reversibly) in tlie reformers, even at very low concentrations. Steam reforming of hydrocarbon feedstock is carried out in tlie priiiiiiry and secondary reformers. 

The operation of a large synthetic ammonia plant based on natural gas involves a delicately balanced sequence of reactions. The gas is first desulfurized to remove compounds which will poison the metal catalysts, then compressed to 30 atm and reacted with steam over a nickel catalyst at 750°C in the primary steam reformer to produce H2 and oxides of carbon ... 

Hydrogenation with Adams catalyst took place only with the 6-alkyl derivatives. Dioxohexahydrotriazine itself acted as a catalyst poison (in common with 1,3,5-triazine and cyanuric acid ). Dioxo-tetrahydrotriazine as well as its A-alkyl and 6-alkyl derivatives can be readily hydrogenated by using Raney nickel. ... 

Nickel catalysts have been used for many dehydrohalogenations (30), but these catalysts are much more suspectible to poisoning by halide ion than are noble metals. As a result, the catalyst-to-substrate ratio must be much higher when using nickel, and reduction times are apt to be lengthy (36). Reductive deiodination of 6 to 7 was achieved over Raney nickel in methanol containing triethylamine. Despite massive loadings, the reduction was slow (20). 

Vanadium and nickel are poisons to many catalysts and should be reduced to very low levels. Most of the vanadium and nickel compounds are concentrated in the heavy residues. Solvent extraction processes are used to reduce the concentration of heavy metals in petroleum residues. 

This paper surveys the field of methanation from fundamentals through commercial application. Thermodynamic data are used to predict the effects of temperature, pressure, number of equilibrium reaction stages, and feed composition on methane yield. Mechanisms and proposed kinetic equations are reviewed. These equations cannot prove any one mechanism however, they give insight on relative catalyst activity and rate-controlling steps. Derivation of kinetic equations from the temperature profile in an adiabatic flow system is illustrated. Various catalysts and their preparation are discussed. Nickel seems best nickel catalysts apparently have active sites with AF 3 kcal which accounts for observed poisoning by sulfur and steam. Carbon laydown is thermodynamically possible in a methanator, but it can be avoided kinetically by proper catalyst selection. Proposed commercial methanation systems are reviewed. 

Nickel. As a methanation catalyst, nickel is presently preeminent. It is relatively cheap, it is very active, and it is the most selective to methane of all the metals. Its main drawback is that it is easily poisoned by sulfur, a fault common to all the known active methanation catalysts. The nickel content of commercial nickel catalysts is 25-77 wt %. Nickel is dispersed on a high-surface-area, refractory support such as alumina or kieselguhr. Some supports inhibit the formation of carbon by Reaction 4. Chromia-supported nickel has been studied by Czechoslovakian and Russian investigators. 

Catalyst Poisons. Hausberger, Atwood, and Knight (33) reported that nickel catalysts are extremely sensitive to sulfides and chlorides. If all materials which adversely affect the performance of a catalyst were classified as poisons, then carbon laydown and, under extreme conditions, water vapor would be included as nickel methanation catalyst poisons. 

Sulfur. It is not readily predictable from existing thermodynamic data that sulfur would be a poison of nickel catalysts. The action of sulfur is undoubtedly through the reaction of hydrogen sulfide with nickel, according to ... 

Steam. Steam is a potential poison of nickel catalysts under extremely high steam concentrations and low hydrogen concentrations. This is apparent in Figure 11 where the equilibrium ratio of Ph2/Fh2o over Ni and over Ni(active) is plotted as a function of temperature for the following reactions ... 

Catalyst Poisons. It is well known that sulfur, chlorine, etc. are strong poisons for nickel catalyst. Chlorine was not detectable in the synthesis gas downstream of the Rectisol in the SASOL plant. The total sulfur content of this gas—in the form of H2S, COS, and organic sulfur components—averaged 0.08 mg/m3 with maximum values of 0.2 mg total sulfur/m3. 

These tests demonstrated that the Lurgi Rectisol process provides an extremely pure synthesis gas which can be charged directly to the metha-nation plant without problems of sulfur poisoning of the nickel catalyst. However, in order to cope with a sudden sulfur breakthrough from Rectisol as a result of maloperation, a commercial methanation plant should be operated with a ZnO emergency catchpot on line. 

For catalysts poisoned by sulfur, the metal-sulfur bond is usually broken in the presence of steam, as shown for nickel ... 

---