Surface studies on highly active CeO2 supported CuPd bimetallic catalysts for the oxygen-assisted water-gas-shift reaction

To utilize hydrogen for PEMC, low levels of sulfur and CO must be achieved. In a conventional fuel reformer for fuel cell feed gases, the CO reduction steps of the high and low temperature water-gas-shift, and preferential oxidation can take up over 50% of the fuel cell systems volume and weight. To reduce this, the WGS and PrO_x reactions were combined and performed in a single step, called oxygen-assisted water-gas-shift (OWGS) reaction. A new series of highly active and less pyrophoric CuPd bimetallic catalysts was developed, supported on high surface area CeO₂ catalysts for the OWGS. The catalyst containing about 30 wt % Cu and 1 wt % Pd was optimum to achieve high CO conversion close to 100% around 230°C. The effect of temperature and space velocity on the catalytic performance was studied. In-situ XPS and in-situ FTIR studies were used over the CuPd/CeO₂ catalysts to understand the nature of active species involved in the OWGS reaction. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 230th ACS National Meeting (Washington, DC 8/28/2005-9/1/2005).