Issue 9, 2019

Achieving efficient and robust catalytic reforming on dual-sites of Cu species

Abstract

Catalytic reforming provides a practical technique for on-board hydrogen production in fuel cell applications. The high energy density, easy transportation and non-toxicity of biomass-derived dimethyl ether (bio-DME) offer potential to replace methanol for on-board steam reforming (SR). Presently, the reaction mechanism over conventional Cu-based SR catalysts remains elusive, limiting the rational design of highly efficient reforming systems. Herein, we build a catalytic system for bio-DME SR with dual-sites of Cu species, i.e., Cu+ and Cu0 sites, and achieve a record-high H2 production rate of 1145 mol kgcat−1 h−1. Via regulating the ratios of the dual-sites of Cu, we clearly describe molecular understandings on SR. And we discover that the substantially boosted activity is induced by a new Cu+-determined reaction path substituting the conventional Cu0-determined path. Intrinsically, Cu2O can act as a physical spacer and hydroxyl consumer to suppress the aggregation of metallic Cu species in SR. Due to the unique structure of metallic Cu surrounded by Cu2O, the catalyst exhibits robust catalytic performance even after severe thermal treatment. These findings open a new avenue for designing efficient catalytic reforming systems with commercial potential.

Graphical abstract: Achieving efficient and robust catalytic reforming on dual-sites of Cu species

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
02 jan 2019
Accepted
16 jan 2019
First published
23 jan 2019
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 2578-2584

Achieving efficient and robust catalytic reforming on dual-sites of Cu species

K. Ma, Y. Tian, Z. Zhao, Q. Cheng, T. Ding, J. Zhang, L. Zheng, Z. Jiang, T. Abe, N. Tsubaki, J. Gong and X. Li, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 2578 DOI: 10.1039/C9SC00015A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements