Effect of oxygen vacancy influenced by CeO2 morphology on the methanol catalytic reforming for hydrogen production

Methanol reforming has been a popular pathway to produce hydrogen due to the high hydrogen storage density of methanol. CeO 2 as the support is widely used for catalytic methanol reforming, but the effect of CeO 2 morphology on the reaction mechanism has not been revealed out. In this study, the catalytic performances of Ru/CeO 2 with different CeO 2 morphology, including rod , cubic and their mixed, were investigated in methanol reforming for the production of hydrogen. By regulating the temperature during hydrothermal preparation, different CeO 2 supports can be achieved. Results showed that Ru/CeO 2 catalyst with rod CeO 2 (Ru/r-CeO 2 ) exhibited a much better catalytic performance than the cubic catalyst (Ru/c-CeO 2 ) and the mixed catalyst (Ru/m-CeO 2 ), with a higher yield of hydrogen and a lower selectivity of CO product. This was mainly due to the large surface area that favored the dispersion of Ru metal site and the interaction between Ru and CeO 2 support that improved the electron transfer to benefit the formation of oxygen vacancy . Therefore, the Ru/r-CeO 2 catalyst possessed abundant oxygen vacancy , which enabled to adsorb the methanol efficiently and trigger the methanol reforming reaction . It also can enhance the adsorption of CO and water and promote the water-gas-shift reaction to increase the yield of hydrogen production .