Methanol steam reforming over Cu supported on SiO 2 , amorphous SiO 2 ‐Al 2 O 3 , and Al 2 O 3 catalysts: Influence of support nature

SiO2-, Al2O3-, and SiO2-Al2O3-based catalysts containing different Si/Al ratios have been prepared to study the effect of the support nature on the methanol steam reforming process catalyst. Methanol steam reforming reaction was carried out using each of the catalysts in the temperature range of 150°C to 300°C, weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 1.8 h−1, and atmospheric conditions in a quartz reactor. The properties of the synthesized catalysts were determined by the X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), H2-temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) techniques. SiO2-Al2O3-based catalysts showed better performance (yield @300°C: 87.2% (Si/Al = 0.01); 82.4% (Si/Al = 0.05); 76.6% (Si/Al = 0. 1); 69.1% (Si/Al = 0.2)) compared to SiO2 (59.3%)- and Al2O3 (49.5%)-based catalysts. In addition, the γ-Al2O3-based catalyst produced a relatively large amount of CO (6.8% @ 150°C and 9.9% @300°C), whereas those supported on amorphous SiO2-Al2O3 yielded much less CO. In SiO2-Al2O3-based catalysts, increasing Si/Al ratio decreased the catalyst reductivity. In addition, the SiO2-Al2O3-based catalyst with the least Si/Al ratio, which had maximum reductivity and minimum number of total acid sites, performed much better than other SiO2-Al2O3-based catalysts (yield: 28.3% @ 150°C and 87.2% @300°C).