Ethanol steam reforming over Rh and Co catalysts supported on lanthana/silica systems

LEANDRO CORONEL, ANA TARDITI, JOHN MÚNERA, LAURA CORNAGLIA

Pittsburgh

Congreso; 24th North American Catalysis Society Meeting; 2015

Among the different sources ofhydrogen, ethanol is considered an excellent alternative due to its almostclose carbon cycle of production and low toxicity. Ethanol steam reforming(ESR) is a global reaction that produces 6 moles of hydrogen per mol ofethanol. However, depending on the catalyst used and the operating conditionsemployed, several reactions may occur in parallel such as ethanoldecomposition, dehydrogenation and dehydration, methane steam reforming, watergas shift and hydrogenation reactions. All these parallel reactions produceacetaldehyde, hydrogen, methane, carbon oxides and ethylene. Numerouscatalysts based on noble metals as well as non-noble metals such as cobalt,nickel and copper have been studied for the steam reforming of ethanol. Severalstudies have shown that rhodium based catalysts are the most active andselective ones for hydrogen production. Furthermore, the support mayinfluence the catalytic properties of the metals for the ethanol steam reforming(ESR). In previous publications,we reported La2O3-SiO2 binary supports for Rhcatalysts applied to the dry reforming of methane and ESR. The formation of anamorphous lanthanum disilicate phase yielded a proper metal-support interactionthat led to a high metal dispersion and high methane reaction rates.  The purpose of this work was to apply Rh  and Co monometallic catalysts supported on binaryLa2O3-SiO2 systems to the steam reforming ofethanol for hydrogen production in membrane reactors.