Effect of support on the performance of PtRu-based catalysts in oxidative steam reforming of ethanol to produce hydrogen

Oxidative steam reforming of ethanol (OSRE) to produce hydrogen has been investigated over a series of supported PtRu catalysts, with different supports. Bimetallic PtRu-based catalysts were prepared by the impregnation method using H(2)PtCl(6) and RuCl(3) as precursors. Six supports (reducible oxides of ZrO(2), CeO(2), and Co(3)O(4), and irreducible oxides of ZnO, Al(2)O(3), and NiO) were chosen to fabricate bimetallic catalysts. The catalytic performance of the OSRE reaction in the series of PtRu-based samples was evaluated using a fixed-bed flow reactor under atmospheric pressure. In front reaction, the catalyst was pre-activated by reduction under 200°C for 3 h. The gas hourly space velocity was adjusted at 66,000 h(−1), and the optimal molar ratios of the H(2)O/EtOH and O(2)/EtOH feeds were 4.9 and 0.44, respectively. The results indicated that the PtRu supported on the ZrO(2) and CeO(2) exhibited superior catalytic performance in the OSRE reaction under a low temperature (a T(R) of approximately 320°C) for producing the main products of H(2) and CO(2) with lower CO and CH(4) by-products. Also, it was quite stable during a long time evaluation; the maximum Y(H2) maintained at 4.5–4.2, and the CO distribution approached 3.3–3.5 mol% around 84 h test at 340°C over the PtRu/ZrO(2) catalyst.