Study on CuAl₂O₄ catalytic material for methanol steam reforming

The CuAl₂O₄ catalytic material was in-situ synthesized using γ-Al₂O₃ as raw material. The catalytic material was characterized by XRF, XRD, BET and H₂-TPR. The effect of the copper-aluminum molar ratios on the structure and properties of CuAl₂O₄ spinel catalytic material and its performance in hydrogen production from methanol steam reforming were investigated. The results show that the copper-aluminum molar ratios affects reduction performance of copper species, which affects its performance in catalyzing methanol steam reforming to produce hydrogen. When the copper-aluminum molar ratios is 1:2, CuAl₂O₄ catalytic material has better catalytic performance. When the reaction temperature is 260℃, with a water-methanol molar ratio of 1.2 and methanol gas hourly space velocity of 800 h^-1, the methanol conversion reaches 100%, the hydrogen production rate is 895 mL/(kg·s).