Catalysts development to base of Cu and Ni supported in ZrO2 for the H2 generation by the methanol reformed in oxidizing atmosphere

The search of new alternating sources of energy is at the present time one of the primordial objectives to world level because of the global heating caused by the high emissions of CO2 at the atmosphere. In this sense the employment of H2 through the fuel cells offers a more viable alternative for the use of the energy coming from the connection H-H that can be appointed for use of mobile, industrial and homemade applications. However, to generate H2 in enough quantities is a great challenge at technological level for the necessity of to count with highly selective and efficient catalysts to low reaction temperatures as well as a source that comes from renewable resources. Under this context the methanol reformed in oxidizing atmosphere offers great ecological as energetics and industrial advantages; inside this investigation plane, the Cu seems to be one of the suitable candidates for this reaction due to its high capacity to generate H2, besides the great potential of improvement in its physical-chemical properties when being worked in nano metric size and /or associated with other materials. On the other hand, it is known that the Ni addition improvement the catalytic properties because of a better material dispersion, what offers big possibilities of being applied in the H2 generation in situ by means of the methanol reformed reaction in oxidizing atmosphere; and that the conformation of bimetallic particles Cu/Ni presented high selectivity and catalytic activity for the reaction in question. (Author)