Engineering Commons^™

Atomic Level Study Of Water-Gas Shift Catalysts Via Transmission Electron Microscopy And X-Ray Spectroscopy, Mehmed Cem Akatay

Open Access Dissertations

Water-gas shift (WGS), CO + H₂ O [Special characters omitted.] CO₂ + H₂ (ΔH° = -41 kJ mol ^-1 ), is an industrially important reaction for the production of high purity hydrogen. Commercial Cu/ZnO/Al₂ O₃ catalystsare employed to accelerate this reaction, yet these catalysts suffer from certain drawbacks, including costly regeneration processes and sulfur poisoning. Extensive research is focused on developing new catalysts to replace the current technology. Supported noble metals stand out as promising candidates, yet comprise intricate nanostructures complicating the understanding of their working mechanism.

In this study, the structure of the supported …

Spectroscopic And Kinetic Characterization Of Catalytic Materials For The Conversion Of Biomass-Derived Compounds, Paul James Dietrich

Open Access Dissertations

As economies look to transition away from petroleum for social, economic, and political reasons, biomass will continue to attract attention as a renewable feedstock for the fuels and chemicals industry. In order to turn biomass into end use fuels and chemicals, the oxygen content must be lowered significantly, requiring large hydrogen inputs. For these processes to be completely renewable, the hydrogen must come from biomass or biomass-derived compounds. In this work, catalysts for the aqueous phase reforming (APR) of biomass-derived sugars were characterized by a combination of reaction kinetics, X-ray spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and theoretical computation to determine the active …