A highly selective Pt WGS catalyst is used in a Pd membrane reactor at pressures up to 800 kPa to obtain pure hydrogen

CAROLINA A. CORNAGLIA; SILVANO TOSTI; MIRKO SANSOVINI; JOHN F. MÚNERA; EDUARDO A. LOMBARDO

Porto

Conferencia; 11th International Conference on Catalysis in Membrane Reactors; 2013

The water gas shift (WGS) reaction is a key step in the purification of the reformed stream to obtain hydrogen with a low CO content. If this reaction is carried out in a membrane reactor, the CO impurity level can be reduced in one step below 10 ppm as required by low temperature PEM fuel cells. Noble metal formulations have been investigated as promising next generation WGS catalysts because they exhibit much faster kinetics compared to the industrial ones. In addition, the new generation solids offer other significant advantages such as no need of activation prior to use and no degradation on exposure to air or temperature cycles. The disadvantages of many noble metal supported formulations are their relatively rapid deactivation and their high methanation activity.The goal of this work was to develop a very active WGS catalyst, very stable, with no carbon formation, with minimal methanation activity suitable for use in a Pd membrane reactor.