Hydrogen Production by Steam Reforming of Methanol over Cu/ZnO/ ZSM-5 Catalyst

In this paper, steam reforming of methanol was studied over Cu/ZnO/ZSM-5 (40/40/20%) catalyst for production of hydrogen. The catalyst was synthesized by deposition- precipitation technique and its structure was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). GC-MS analysis was applied in order to predict the rates of CO2 and H2 formation under the reaction conditions. Inappreciable amounts of CO by-product were formed in the reforming process at six periods of contact times and high methanol conversions. In fact, the percent of methanol conversion and H2 selectivity of Cu/ZnO/ZSM-5 (40/40/20%) were 55.25 % and 75.57 %, respectively and as a result its yield was 41.75%. These results lead us to conclude that the presence of mesopore zeolite supports in Cu/ZnO catalyst exhibits superior SRM performance.