Effect of zirconium oxide added to Cu/ZnO catalyst for steam reforming of methanol to hydrogen

Methanol steam reforming to hydrogen and carbon dioxide is catalyzed over Cu/ZnO prepared by a coprecipitation method. The addition of zirconium ions to the starting material of the catalyst results in improvement of the activity and reduction in the particle sizes of copper and zinc oxide. However, the surface activity of copper on Cu/ZnO/ZrO2 is similar to that for Cu/ZnO. It is suggested that the activity depends mainly on the interaction between Cu and ZnO particles and the presence of zirconium oxide does not directly affect the activity. Steep deactivation occurs over Cu/ZnO in the reaction at 400 °C, but the presence of ZrO2 particles hampers the aggregation and/or sintering of Cu and ZnO particles and mitigates the deactivation.

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► Addition of ZrO2 to Cu/ZnO improves the activity to methanol steam reforming.
► Addition of ZrO2 reduces particle sizes of Cu and ZnO.
► ZrO2 does not directly enhance surface activity of Cu/ZnO/ZrO2.
► Strong contact between Cu and ZnO particles increases activity.
► ZrO2 particles mitigate structural change of Cu and ZnO at 400 °C.