Microreactors with Pt/zeolite catalytic films for the selective oxidation of CO in simulated reformer streams

The selective oxidation (SELOX) of CO in the presence of H2, CO2 and H2O has been carried out on stainless steel microreactors with 500 μm diameter microchannels. To this end, catalytic films consisting of Pt supported on zeolite Y (Pt-FAU) or ETS-10 (Pt-ETS10), were prepared by seeded hydrothermal synthesis on the surface of the reactor microchannels to give a uniform, mechanically stable catalytic coating on the channel surface. Activity tests were performed with feeds consisting of CO and H2, plus CO2 and/or H2O. The best performance was obtained on microreactors coated with Pt-FAU catalytic films. When feeds representative of real reformate streams (containing CO2 and H2O) were fed to Pt-FAU coated reactors, the microreactor clearly outperformed the fixed bed reactor giving light-off temperatures that were lower by almost 50 °C.