Preparation and characterization of CuO/ZnO-Al2O3 catalyst washcoats with CeO2 sols for autothermal reforming of methanol in a microreactor

Porous alumina support CuO/ZnO mixed with CeO2 sols washcoat catalysts have been synthesized and characterized for the autothermal reforming of methanol in the present study. Experimentally, the BET N-2 adsorption for as-synthesized catalysts and catalyst mixtures with three different CeO2 sols washcoats were 26, 31, 43, and 62 m(2) g(-1), respectively. In addition, porosity of the catalyst is decreased significantly after certain amount of higher loading of the binder as confirmed using FE-SEM and BET measurements. The intensities of XRD and XPS data indicate that catalyst content copper species strongly interact with CeO2 to from Cu-O-Ce. The EPR spectrum may reveal that Cu species may be mainly interacted with Ceria. The EXAFS data reveals that the Cu species have a Cu-O bonding with a bond distance of 1.99 +/- 0.02 angstrom and coordination number is 3.24. Moreover, a hydrogen production rate of 2.16 L h(-1) was obtained and the corresponding methanol conversion was 95% at 240 degrees C using the CuO/ZnO with 2 wt.% CeO2 sol washcoat catalysts. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.