Methanol Steam Reforming Catalyzing over Cu/Zn/Fe Mixed Oxide Catalysts

چکیده مقاله

Methanol steam reforming (MSR) is an attractive catalytic reaction which produces hydrogen for fuel cells. Today the Cu/Zn/Al catalysts are used, of course with higher concentration of CO in reactor/reformer effluent which affects the fuel cell anode performance. The present work deals with the synthesis of nano-structured Cu/Zn/Fe mixed oxides with different ratios by a facile co-precipitation method as catalyst for methanol steam reforming. The prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption/desorption (BET), Temperature programmed reduction (TPR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques to investigate the prepared catalyst properties. Methanol Steam reforming by using CuAl, CuZnAl, CuFe and CuZnFe at 230-270 ˚C was performed and it was observed that the CuZnFe catalyst resulted in a lower CO production and the higher methanol conversion compared to CuZnAl catalysts. The results revealed that inexpensive Cu/Zn/Fe mixed metal oxide nanoparticles have a high potential as catalyst for MSR. Furthermore, with Cu/Zn ratio of 0.9 for CuZnFe catalysts, methanol conversion of 98% at 270 ˚C can be achieved. On the other hand, the CO production value was reported around zero. Finally, the experiments showed that the Cu/Zn/Fe mixed oxides has a good reproducibility and it is highly stable for reforming of methanol for 17 hrs period of time.