Effect of preparation method on the hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming over binary Cu/ZrO2 catalysts

Several methods (impregnation, oxalate gel–coprecipitation and conventional aqueous coprecipitation) have been comparatively examined for the preparation of binary Cu/ZrO2 catalysts for the catalytic production of hydrogen by steam reforming of methanol (SRM). A variety of techniques including N2 adsorption, XRD, N2O chemisorption, XRD, H2-TPR, and XPS were used to characterize the physical and chemical properties of the as-obtained catalysts. The results show that the preparation method significantly affects the component dispersion, microstructural properties and the resulting catalytic performance with respect to methanol conversion, H2 production and CO concentration. The catalyst with higher specific copper surface area and component dispersion shows higher activity for methanol conversion at lower temperature. The best Cu/ZrO2 catalyst has been prepared by an oxalate gel–coprecipitation method, which shows much higher catalytic activity and enhanced long-term stability in the SRM reaction as compared to the catalysts prepared by conventional aqueous–coprecipitation and impregnation methods.