Induced activation of the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol

The surface structure of heterogeneous catalysts is closely associated with their catalytic performance. Current efforts for structural modification mainly focus on improving the catalyst synthesis details. Here we reveal an induced activation strategy to manipulate the catalyst surface reconstruction process by controlling the composition of reducing agents at the activation stage. Exposing the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst to a H2/H2O/CH3OH/N2 mixture at 300 °C and atmospheric pressure is found to accelerate the migration of ZnOx species onto the surface of metallic Cu0 nanoparticles via an adsorbate-induced strong metal–support interaction. Such a morphological evolution improves the long-term stability by threefold and results in more abundant Cu–ZnOx interfacial sites with catalytic activity enhanced by twofold towards the methanol steam reforming reaction.