PURIFICATION OF HYDROGEN RICH GAS BY MEANS OF CO REMOVAL OVER CuO-CeO2 CATALYSTS

In this work, catalytic systems based on CuO-CeO2 were synthesized using the Pechini method. These catalytic systems were applied in the PROX process. In the synthesis procedure, the CuO-CeO2 catalytic systems were synthesized with 0.1 and 0.5 mol of CuO. The CuO-CeO2 catalytic systems were characterized by XRD with refinement by the Rietveld method, chemical analysis by EDX, morphological analysis by SEM, textural analysis, agglomerates size distribution, analysis of thermogravimetric data, and catalytic tests at bench scale in the PROX reaction. According to the results, the concentrations of CuO (0.1 and 0.5 mol) inserted in the CuO-CeO2 catalytic system showed great influence on the structural characteristics observed in the X-ray diffraction results. However, morphologic and textural features and the results of agglomerates size distribution did not show significant changes to the variation of CuO concentration inserted in the catalytic systems developed in this work by the Pechini method. According to the catalytic tests, both synthesized samples were ready to be applied in a process of converting CO to CO2. However, the sample containing 0.1 mol of CuO was more active than the catalyst sample containing 0.5 mol of the same catalytic active species