Acidity Control of Al-SBA-15 and Its Effect on the Catalytic Performance for Steam Reforming of Dimethyl Ether

Steam reforming (SR) of dimethyl ether (DME) seems to proceed via a successive two step mechanism: hydrolysis of DME over solid acid catalysts, followed by methanol SR over copper-based catalysts. Since the DME hydrolysis is rate-controlling, it is desirable to continue more systematic study concerning the solid acids for better production of hydrogen. In this work, the composites of mesoporous solid acid catalysts (Al-SBA-15) and copper-based catalysts (Cu/ZnO/Al2O3) made the hybrid catalysts, and they were used for DME SR. Acidity of Al-SBA-15 was controlled by tuning Si/Al ratio, which should vary the number of acidic sites. The reducibility of hybrid catalysts was varied with different weight ratio between Al-SBA-15 and Cu/ZnO/Al2O3. The catalytic activity of DME SR was analyzed in terms of acid amount and copper reducibility.