(585bw) Anodic Aluminum Oxide Supported Cu-Zn Catalyst for Steam Reforming of Methanol

Anodic Aluminum Oxide Supported Cu-Zn Catalyst for Steam Reforming of Methanol

Jung Hyeon Kim, Young Shin Jang, Dong Hyun Kim*

Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea

*E-mail: dhkim@knu.ac.kr

Recently, hydrogen production from steam reforming of methanol (SRM) has been proposed for supplying hydrogen to fuel cells[1]. For this purpose, metal monolith reactors have been studied since such reactors have a high thermal conductivity, good mechanical strength and low pressure drop[2]. However, the reactors suffered from peeling of the catalyst layer due to the weak bonding between the metal substrate and the catalyst layer. The catalyst layer prepared on the porous support grown on aluminum metal surface has been shown to be resistant to peeling and as active as conventional particle catalysts [3].

In this study, an anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) support was prepared on an Al plate by anodizing in oxalic acid electrolyte solution. The AAO was treated with warm oxalic acid solution to widen the pores and then treated with hot water to increase the surface area. Thus prepared support was immersed into a Cu and Zn nitrate solution, dried and then calcined. These impregnation steps were repeated to increase the loading of the active components.

 It was observed that the time of immersion of AAO support into the nitrate solution (5 min or 1 h) had little effect on the performance of the catalyst, but the activity increased noticeably with repetition of the impregnation up to 4 times. A direct relation between the Cu metal area and the catalytic activity was observed. Also in this study, the reaction rate of methanol steam reforming over the AAO supported catalyst was also obtained for design of the reformer.

REFERENCES

[1] Daniel R. Palo, Robert A. Dagle, Jamie D. Holladay, Chem. Rev., 107 (2007) 3992.

[2] Achim K. Heibel, Charles M. Sorensen, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43 (2004) 4602.

[3] E.L. Reddy, H.C. Lee, D.H. Kim, Int. J. Hydrogen energy, 40 (2015) 2509.