Methanol steam reforming for hydrogen production over NiTiO ₃ nanocatalyst with hierarchical porous structure†

Abstract

Steam reforming for hydrogen production is one of the important research directions for clean energy. NiTiO ₃ catalysts with a hierarchical porous structure are prepared and applied to methanol steam reforming for hydrogen production. The results show that the optimum catalyst (10% Ni–Ti–O _x ) not only has a hierarchical porous structure, but it also involves the coexistence of NiTiO ₃, anatase TiO ₂ and rutile TiO ₂. The formation of NiTiO ₃ is beneficial to the adsorption and activation of methanol molecules on the surface of the Ni–Ti–O _x catalyst, and the main intermediate species of the methanol molecular reaction are hydroxyl groups, methoxy species and formic acid species. Furthermore, the methanol steam reforming reaction is mainly dominated by methanol decomposition at low temperature (350–500 °C), while it is mainly dominated by methanol and water molecular reactions at high temperature (500–600 °C).

Abstract

The formation of NiTiO ₃ with a hierarchical porous structure is beneficial to the adsorption and activation of methanol molecules on the surface of a Ni–Ti–O _x catalyst.