Discovering Indium As Hydrogen Production Booster For A Cu/Sio2 Catalyst In Steam Reforming Of Methanol

We report on the use of In as an effective H-2 production promoter in a Cu/SiO2 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol. To date, In promotion has been limited to noble metals because of its tendency to "bury" other metals thus compromising the catalytic activity. Here, we prepared a silica-supported Cu-In catalyst via a urea-assisted co-precipitation method that showed a higher H-2 productivity compared to the monometallic catalyst and a remarkable H-2/CO2 molar ratio of almost 3 at 220 degrees C. Through XPS, XRPD and HRTEM-EDX along with H-2 - and CO-TPR, H2O-TPD, and N2O titrations, supported by computational modeling, we attributed such superior performances to an easier H2O activation due to improved electronic properties of the Cu phase, that is, its lower oxidation state via electron density transfer from the InOx buffer phase as a 1D "necklace" structures crucially mediating the interaction of small Cu nanoparticles (2.6 nm) and silica.