Synthesis of Cu-Ce 0.8 Zr 0.2 O 2 catalyst by ball milling for CO 2 reforming of ethanol

A Cu-Ce0.8Zr0.2O2 (Cu-CeZr) catalyst was synthesized by a facile ball-milling technique and its performance towards to CO2 reforming of ethanol was deeply studied. Noticeably, syngas production from ethanol dry reforming is regarded as one of the efficient routes to minify the undesirable CO2 discharge. Various characterization and detailed experimental tests were conducted to probe the influence of catalyst preparation method. Hence, the as-prepared Cu-CeZr sample presented a better activity compared with Cu/CeZr prepared by precipitation method. Full ethanol conversion was achieved at as low as 550 °C under the conditions where only 49 mol% H2, 41 mol% CO and 10 mol% CH4 were formed as main products. Additionally, Cu-CeZr catalyst exhibited satisfactory stability even under severe stoichiometric feed composition (ethanol/CO2 = 1) during 90 h on-stream aging tests. Herein, the remarkably superior catalytic performance of Cu-CeZr was interpreted in terms of the improved Cu dispersion and the intimated metal-support interaction. This might shed light on syngas production from an sustainable process instead of conventional methane dry reforming.