H2 production for MC fuel cell by steam reforming of ethanol over MgO supported Pd, Rh, Ni and Co catalysts

The performance of MgO supported Pd, Rh, Ni and Co catalysts in the steam reforming of simulated bio-ethanol at MC fuel cell operative conditions (T = 650 °C) has been investigated. Rh/MgO shows the best performance both in terms of activity and stability, however, it seems not to be so selective towards H2 production. Ni, Co and Pd catalysts are affected by deactivation mainly due to metal sintering. Ni/MgO displays the best performance in terms of H2 selectivity (> 95%). A very low coke formation rate was observed on Rh/MgO catalyst, however, even on Ni/MgO catalyst coke formation occurs with modest rate. Kinetics measurements have shown that a significant difference in terms of metals specific activity exist: Rh sites resulted to be 2.2, 3.7 and 5.8 times more active than Pd, Co and Ni, respectively.