Abstract
Water-gas-shift reaction is a critical step involved in the on-board reforming of liquid fuels such as methanol, ethanol, gasoline, etc to produce CO-free hydrogen for PEM fuel cells. A cost-effective and highly active catalyst is required for the on-board low-temperature WGS reaction. In this study a new series of Cu-Pd/CeO2 and Cu-Pd/CeO2-ZrO2 bimetallic catalysts with different Cu/Pd atomic ratios were prepared by deposition-precipitation methods. The catalytic performance was evaluated in the WGS, preferential oxidation, and O2 assisted WGS reactions in the temperature range 100-250oC. High-surface area CeO2 (148 m2/g) obtained from a commercial source as well as nano-structured CeO2 and CeO2-ZrO2 prepared by urea gelation and template-assisted synthesis methods were used as supports in order to evaluate the effect of structural and textural properties on catalytic performance. The performance of laboratory prepared catalysts were also compared with a commercial Cu-ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst combined with a commercial 1% wt Pt/Al2O3 catalyst.
