Study on the catalysts for dimethyl ether steam reforming

A series of bi-functional catalysts for dimethyl ether (DME) steam reforming were prepared by mixing the components for methanol reforming and the components for DME hydrolysis. The influences of different hydrolysis components and reforming components on the catalytic performances were investigated. The results showed that the optimum DME hydrolysis component and methanol reforming component were the γ-Al2O3 and the CuMn composite oxides, respectively, and both of them were mixed in ap- propriate proportion to obtain the CuMn/γ-Al2O3 bi-functional catalyst with the preferable performances of DME steam reforming, and DME conversion of 98.1%, hydrogen selectivity of 97.5%, and hydrogen yield of 95.6% were achieved over the optimized CuMn/γ- Al2O3 catalyst at atmospheric pressure and the optimum reaction temperature of 350℃.