Methanol steam reforming; Effects of various metal oxides on the properties of a Cu-based catalyst

Ternary Cu/ZnO/metal oxide catalysts are prepared through the co-precipitation method under strict control of parameters like pH, calcination conditions, and precipitation temperature in a systematic manner. The metal oxides applied in this study consist of Al2O3, ZrO2, La2O3 and Ce2O3. The distinction of this work in comparison with similar research is a comprehensive investigatation of the catalytic properties of metal oxides (including conversion, selectivity and stability) which have the potential for use in the methanol steam reforming process. The catalysts are characterized through XRD, SEM and BET. The prepared catalysts are applied in methanol steam reforming in a fixed bed reactor. A TGA analysis performed for all four catalysts determined that the Ce2O3 and ZrO2 metal oxide catalysts showed the best results in terms of stability with a coke formation of 0.7wt% and 0.8wt%, respectively; and maximum surface area is related to Cu/ZnO/Ce2O3, which can result in excellent stability and Cu dispersion. Overall, the obtained results indicate that the ZrO2 metal oxide catalyst is the best candidate to be applied in methanol steam reforming due to its higher activity, selectivity and yield. The hydrogen selectivity and yield of Cu/ZnO/ZrO2 after 6 hours of experiment were 80.02% and 46.4%, respectively.