Fuel cell grade hydrogen from methanol on a commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst

Single step combustion synthesized Cu/Ce0.8Zr0.2O2for methanol steam reforming: structural insights fromin situXPS and HRTEM studies

“…The deactivation of catalyst is mainly associated with the thermal sintering of the small copper nanoparticles leading to a decrease of the active SA [30][31][32] and or the reduction of oxidized copper to its metallic form. 3 The phase analyses as well as structural studies have already proved that metallic copper is present in both the aged samples, the size of Cu particles being larger in the higher Cu-loaded sample Cu15CZ80. Owing to the larger loading of copper in it, the extent of sintering is more in Cu15CZ80 than in Cu10CZ80.…”

“…1 The on-board reforming of hydrocarbons has gained renewed interest of researchers as it allows hydrogen production in situ, which can solve the problems of storage. 2,3 The production of fuel cell grade hydrogen remains a challenging issue. The low temperature methanol steam reforming (MSR) is a simple and convenient route to produce nearly CO-free hydrogen.…”

Methanol steam reforming behavior of copper impregnated over CeO 2 –ZrO 2 derived from a surfactant assisted coprecipitation route

“…The commercial CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst has been reported to exhibit 67% conversion at GHSV of 24,000 h -1 [11]. A similar study on a commercial MSR catalyst by Choi and Stenger has shown a good on stream reactivity pattern at a very low space velocity of 1100 h -1 [4]. In another study, Kumar et al have carried out the CO2 reforming reaction of CH4 over 5% Ni impregnated on surfactant (CTAB) assisted coprecipitation synthesized Ce0.60Zr0.40O2 showing better the catalytic stability than the corresponding normal coprecipitation prepared sample [39].…”

“…The catalyst deactivation is mainly associated with the thermal sintering of small copper particles leading to a reduction of active surface area [53e55], the change in the oxidation state of copper from its oxidized form (Cu 2þ ) to the metallic form (Cu 0 ) [4], the variation in Cu þ /Cu 0 molar ratio [11,26e28] and the deposition of coke on the catalyst surface [56,57]. The continuous activity decrease in our long time on stream tests can be correlated to the formation of the reduced copper phases, namely Cu 0 and Cu2O.…”

“…They require hydrogen as fuel, its storage and transportation becoming a big challenge. Nevertheless, the storage problem can be overcome through the in situ production of hydrogen on demand through the efficient reforming of hydrocarbon 1 3 2 [3,4]. The production of fuel cell grade hydrogen containing very low level of CO (<10 ppm) is a challenging issue.…”