Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of Russian ...

PP-IV-15ETHANOL CONVERSION TO HYDROGEN CONTAINING GAS OVERCOPPER SUPPORTED ON NANOCRYSTALLINE CERIALermontov A.S., Yakimova M.S., Polezhaeva O.S.*,Tretyakov V.F., Ivanov V.K.*A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis RAS, Moscow, Leninskii pr., 29*N.S. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry RAS, Moscow, Leninskii pr., 31E-mail: lermontov@ips.ac.ruCurrent trends in modern fuels development are mainly focused on their ecologyfriendliness. Many countries tighten their legislation in terms of decreasing industrial andtransportation exhaust gases emissions. Among the other chemicals hydrogen is the mostprobable candidate to be the fuel of the new millennium. Its oxidative conversion in recentlydeveloped fuel cells lead only to water, which is absolutely safe from ecological viewpoint.The efficiency of fuel cells use is higher than the combustion engine, and operationtemperature of fuel cells prohibits the formation of NO X compounds. However, the chemicalmethods of hydrogen production always include oxidation of carbon containing compounds,for example water reforming of methane or coal, which produce a lot of CO 2 , CO and otherunfriendly exhaust gases. The next problem is hydrogen storage, because convenient methodsimplicate not safe high pressure gas tanks with low hydrogen capacity. The one of possiblesolution is on board hydrogen generation from methanol or ammonia, but these compoundsare toxic and not available everywhere.Another way is to use ethanol as the source of hydrogen. Ethanol can be produced frombiomass and therefore preserve additional CO 2 emissions closing a natural CO 2 cycle. Also,the easiest availability of water ethanol mixtures is an important advantage. There are severaltypes of ethanol conversion: oxidative, steam-oxidative, and steam. All of them lead to CO 2and H 2 as the main product, but differs in water/oxygen ratio in reactants and also in reactiontemperature range. This work deals with steam reforming of ethanol (1), which can produceup to 6 molecules of hydrogen from one ethanol molecule.CH 3 CH 2 OH + 3 H 2 O 2 CO 2 + 6 H 2 (1)However a number of side reactions exist leading to formation of other compounds:CH 3 CH 2 OH + H 2 O 2 CO + 4 H 2 (2)2 CH 3 CH 2 OH + H 2 O (CH 3 ) 2 C=O + CO 2 + 4 H 2 (3)CH 3 CH 2 OH C 2 H 4 + H 2 O (4)The most important are CO production (2), ethanol to acetone conversion (3), ethanoldehydratation (4), and some others leading to formation of acetaldehyde, methane, and other422