Active Impregnation Method for Copper Foam as Catalyst Support for Methanol Steam Reforming for Hydrogen Production

In order to realize uniformly loading catalyst on copper foam, a new device was designed to drive catalyst precursor solution to flow into the inner pore structures of copper foam by changing driving pressure and flow rate. The three-dimensional models of copper foam loaded with catalyst using different impregnation methods were reconstructed by Micro-CT. The catalyst loading distribution was studied by Micro-CT and SEM. Moreover, methanol steam reforming reaction performance of microreactor with copper foam loaded with catalyst using different methods was compared and analyzed. The results showed that the best loading performance of copper foam was obtained when driving pressure and flow rate of catalyst precursor solution were 0.102 MPa and 0.3 L/min, respectively. Compared with traditional impregnation method, copper foam using active impregnation method exhibited more uniform distribution of catalyst and better reaction performance for hydrogen production. This work provides a feasible method to optimize catalyst loading process.