Ethanol and methanol steam reforming on transition metal catalysts supported on detonation synthesis nanodiamonds for hydrogen production

• Metal/DND systems were used as catalysts in ethanol and methanol steam reforming.
• Pt–Ru/DND composite has the best hydrogen performance and low CO admixture.
• In membrane reactor Pt–Ru/DND catalyst gives more hydrogen productivity than Pt–Ni/DND catalyst.

In this paper we report the results obtained by the comparative study of catalytic activity of monometallic (Ni, Cu, Ru, Pt) and bimetallic (Pt–Ni, Pt–Cu, Pt–Ru) catalysts synthesized on a surface of detonation nanodiamond (DND) supports in steam reforming of methanol and ethanol for hydrogen production. All obtained catalysts (M/DND) were characterized by TEM, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction. The specific surface area of DND-nanocomposites was also evaluated by using BET technique. The obtained M/DND catalysts demonstrated high activity in methanol and ethanol steam reforming reactions. It has been shown that the most active monometallic catalyst is ruthenium one, while Pt–Ru catalyst demonstrates the highest activity in comparison with other bimetallic samples.

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