Elimination of acetaldehyde from hydrogen rich streams employing Ni/ZrO2

•Ni/ZrO2 is a promising catalyst for purification of H2 generated from ethanol.•Ni/ZrO2 eliminates acetaldehyde and CO (25 ppm) at 250 °C.•The Ni/ZrO2 support promotes the CO and acetaldehyde elimination.

The elimination of acetaldehyde from H2 streams was studied employing the TPSR of acetaldehyde decomposition, thermodesorption of acetaldehyde followed by FTIR and catalytic tests employing Ni/ZrO2 catalyst and also Ni/SiO2 catalyst, being the latter a reference. The results show that Ni/ZrO2 is a very promising catalytic system for the CO and acetaldehyde simultaneous elimination from H2 rich streams. Indeed, the outstanding performance of Ni/ZrO2 when compared with Ni/SiO2 might be related to two factors: its high activity toward acetaldehyde and CO elimination and its large number of active sites located on the metal and mainly on the support.