Hydrogen production from ethanol steam reforming over Ni/CeO2 nanocomposite catalysts

The organic polymer chitosan was used as the polymeric precursor for the synthesis of Ni/CeO2 nanocomposite catalysts. The materials were characterized by N2 physisorption, H2 chemisorption, AA, XRD, TGA, TPR, SEM and TEM analyses. The catalysts provide very good reactivity in ethanol steam reforming compared to the conventional Ni/CeO2 catalyst prepared by the impregnation method using a commercial support. High hydrogen selectivity (>75%) was obtained on Ni/CeO2 catalysts by operating at a temperature range of 325–500 °C and a H2O/C2H5OH molar ratio of 3. It was verified that the catalytic behavior could be influenced depending on the experimental conditions employed.