Hydrogen production from ethanol steam reforming over Rh/CeO2 catalyst

• Steam reforming of ethanol over Rh/CeO2 catalyst
• Rh/CeO2 catalyst was rather stable even with a stoichiometric feed composition.
• The interaction between Rh and support prevented metal sintering and coke formation.

Hydrogen production from ethanol steam reforming over an Rh/CeO2 catalyst was investigated with a stoichiometric feed composition. Ethanol was entirely converted to hydrogen and C1 products (CO, CO2, CH4) at 400 °C due to the remarkable C–C bond cleavage capacity of Rh species. The Rh/CeO2 catalyst exhibited stable activity and selectivity without the obvious deactivation during 70 h on stream test. Structural analysis of the aged catalysts indicated that the strong interaction between Rh and ceria support efficiently inhibited Rh particles sintering (stable at around 2 nm) and coke formation to guarantee catalyst stability.