| Hydrogen is being considered worldwide as a future replacement for gasoline, diesel fuel, natural gas in both the transportation and non-transportation sectors. Hydrogen is a versatile energy carrier that can be produced from a variety of widely available primary energy sources, including coal, natural gas, biomass, solar, wind, and nuclear power. Coal, the most abundant fossil fuel on the planet, is being looked at as the possible future major source of H2, due to the development of the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and integrated gasification fuel cell technologies (IGFC). The gasification of coal produces syngas consisting of predominately carbon monoxide and hydrogen with some remaining hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and water. Then, the water-gas shift reaction is used to convert CO to CO2 and additional hydrogen.;The present work describes the synthesis of model Cu, Ni and Cu-Ni catalysts prepared from metal colloids, and compares their behavior in the WGS reaction to that of traditional impregnation catalysts.;Initially, we systematically explored the performance of traditional Cu, Ni and Cu-Ni WGS catalysts made by impregnation methods. Various bimetallic Cu-Ni catalysts were prepared by supported impregnation and compared to monometallic Cu and Ni catalysts. The presence of Cu in bimetallic catalysts suppressed undesirable methanation side reaction, while the Ni component was important for high WGS activity.;Colloidal Cu, Ni and Cu-Ni alloy nanoparticles obtained by chemical reduction were deposited onto alumina to prepare supported catalysts. The resulting Cu and Ni nanoparticle catalysts were found to be 2.5 times more active in the WGS reaction per unit mass of active metal as compared to catalysts prepared by the conventional impregnation technique. The powder XRD and HAADF-STEM provided evidence supporting the formation of Cu-Ni particles containing the Cu core and Cu-Ni alloy shell. The XPS data indicated surface segregation of Cu in the bimetallic Cu-Ni catalysts after reduction. The colloidal Cu5Ni5 alloy catalyst exhibited the WGS reaction rate that was higher than that observed over colloidal Cu and Ni catalysts indicating for the very first time a favorable bimetallic effect for the Cu-Ni system. The presence of Cu in these bimetallic catalysts induced favorable structural and electronic effects not only for enhancing the WGS activity, but also for suppressing methane yield.;Bimetallic Cu-Ni catalysts possessing a core-shell structure were synthesized that provided important insights into their structure-activity relationships in the WGS reaction. We employed a successive reduction route to synthesize Cu Ni and Ni Cu core-shell nanoparticles and deposited them onto alumina support to obtain supported bimetallic catalysts. The powder XRD patterns, CO chemisorption data, and UV-vis spectra indicated the formation of core-shell structures in the bimetallic Cu-Ni nanoparticles. Cu Ni catalysts showed similar WGS activities to supported Ni catalysts but lower methanation activity. Suppressed methanation activity observed for Cu Ni nanoparticles may be due to Cu segregation to the surface. Supported Ni Cu catalysts displayed WGS activity comparable to supported Cu catalysts.;Therefore, these findings strongly suggested that supported Cu, Ni and Cu-Ni alloy nanoparticle catalysts prepared from metal colloids are very promising as highly active WGS catalysts. |
