Microreactors with Pt/zeolite catalytic films for the selective oxidation of CO in simulated reformer streams

Abstract

The selective oxidation (SELOX) of CO in the presence of H 2, CO 2 and H 2O has been carried out on stainless steel microreactors with 500 μm diameter microchannels. To this end, catalytic films consisting of Pt supported on zeolite Y (Pt-FAU) or ETS-10 (Pt-ETS10), were prepared by seeded hydrothermal synthesis on the surface of the reactor microchannels to give a uniform, mechanically stable catalytic coating on the channel surface. Activity tests were performed with feeds consisting of CO and H 2, plus CO 2 and/or H 2O. The best performance was obtained on microreactors coated with Pt-FAU catalytic films. When feeds representative of real reformate streams (containing CO 2 and H 2O) were fed to Pt-FAU coated reactors, the microreactor clearly outperformed the fixed bed reactor giving light-off temperatures that were lower by almost 50 °C.