Abstract
Methanol steam reforming was carried out over catalysts prepared from glassy Cu-Zr alloys containing a small amount of noble metals. The reforming activity increased when the alloys were treated at a temperature above the crystallization point, whereas the as-cast alloy did not have the same activity. The reforming activity of the heat treated alloys increased with the decreasing content of noble metals down to 1 at%. The DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) of the original alloys revealed that the activity was related to the range of the temperature interval between glass transition and crystallization as well as the heat of glass transition. The glassy Cu-Zr alloys with small amount of noble metals changed to fine copper particles supported on zirconium oxide by the heat treatment. The copper particle size of the treated alloys was related to the endothermic heat. These results indicated that the noble atoms were uniformly dispersed into the glassy Cu-Zr alloys at the glass transition temperature. Highly active reforming catalyst can be prepared from an glassy Cu-Zr alloys containing a small amount of noble metals.
