Ceria-based palladium zinc catalysts as promising materials for water gas shift reaction

• Novel ceria-based PdZn catalysts have been tested for water gas shift reaction.
• The active phase consisting of PdZn alloy is formed also under reaction conditions.
• PdZn on ceria-zirconia deactivates likely due to carbon species deposition.
• Palladium zinc on ceria shows good stability during start up-shut down cycles.

The production of hydrogen for fuel cell applications requires several fuel processing steps, including CO removal by means of the water gas shift (WGS) and CO preferential oxidation reactions. In this work we investigate the behavior of palladium–zinc supported on CeO2, Ce0.5Zr0.5O2 and ZrO2 as a promising alternative to low temperature WGS catalysts for fuel processing. WGS activity is optimized when the PdZn alloy is formed. Ceria-containing materials show little deactivation during startup–shutdown cycles in reformate gas and for palladium–zinc supported on pure ceria the activity can be fully recovered by an in situ reduction treatment.

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