Characteristics of Pt-Ni/CeO₂ Catalyst for Water Gas Shift Reaction

Abstract

The WGS reaction over Pt-Ni/CeO₂ catalysts was investigated to develop an alternative commercial Cu-Zn/Al₂O₃ catalyst for an on-board gasoline fuel processor. The catalysts were prepared by coprecipitation and incipient wetness methods and were characterized by N₂ physisorption, CO chemisorption, XRD, TEM and TPD. It was found that Pt-Ni/CeO₂ catalyst showed higher activity than the commercial LTS catalyst. It was also found that Pt-Ni/CeO₂ catalyst showed higher stability than the commercial LTS catalyst during the thermal cycling reaction performed at 250°C over a time period of 130h. The results suggest that the 0.2 wt% Pt-Ni/CeO₂ catalyst is an attractive candidate as the alternative commercial LTS catalyst for the fuel cell powered vehicles applications, even though this catalyst was slowly deactivated during the thermal cycling run.