Steam reforming of methanol over copper-yttria catalyst supported on praseodymium-aluminum mixed oxides

In the present study, an active copper-based catalyst with long-term stability for methanol steam reforming was developed. The catalyst copper-yttria supported on praseodymium-aluminum mixed oxides was prepared by using PEG-400 as dispersion agent and Y(2)O(3) as promoter for dispersing Cu particles to get the Cu crystallite size less than 10 nm and to increase the catalytic activity with high selectivity of CO(2); alumina was used as structural enhancer to strengthen the stability of Cu-Y(2)O(3)/Pr(2)O(3) catalyst. The prepared catalysts were characterized with BET, TEM, TGA and xRD. using Cu((25))Y(2)O(3(10))/(Pr(2)O(3(50))Al(2)O(3(50)))((65)) in a fixed-bed reactor, the H(2) yield reached 99.1% at 280 degrees C with CO(2) selectivity above 98%, and the H(2) production rate at 320 degrees C only slightly decreased from 120 to 109 mmol/(s.kg(cat)) in 100 h of duration at 4.6 h(-1) of weight hourly space velocity based on methanol. The high stability of catalyst Cu-Y(2)O(3)/Pr(2)O(3)-Al(2)O(3) showed a good performance in methanol steam reforming. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.