Low-temperature methanol steam reforming kinetics over a novel CuZrDyAl catalyst

A kinetic study within the low-temperature methanol steam reforming (MSR) reaction was performed over a novel CuZrDyAl catalyst. The physicochemical and catalytic properties of the CuZrDyAl catalyst were compared with those of a conventional CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 (G66 MR, Süd-Chemie) sample. The in-house catalyst displays better performance than the reference G66 MR sample in terms of methanol conversion and selectivity. The parameters of a simple power-law equation and two mechanistic kinetic models were determined minimizing the residual sum of squares; the best fitting with the experimental data were obtained when using Model 3, based on the reported work from Peppley et al. (Appl Catal A 179:31–49, 1999) for the commercial CuO/ZnO/Al2O3. Noteworthy is the small number of MSR kinetic studies at 170–200 °C temperature range.