Hydrocarbon Conversion Catalyst Group
- To prepare clean synthetic fuels such as hydrogen -

Process developments for conversions of hydrocarbon resources such as petroleum-derived materials, natural gas, methane hydrate and biomass into sulfur-free synthetic fuels such as hydrogen and dimethylether and useful commodity intermediates are highly desired, to keep energy-security and to reduce CO₂ generation. Our research group are developing efficient catalysts for preparing useful materials such as hydrogen, olefins, oxygenates from aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons and bioethanol and so on, through decomposition, reforming, CO shift conversion, dehydrogenation, condensations.

Group Leader: Kazuhisa MURATA
Members: Isao TAKAHARA, Megumu INABA, Masahiro SAITO, Liu Yanyong, Wang Linsheng

Materials effective for hydrocarbon conversion.
Ti-Modified hi-silica zeolite (Si/Al2=1900)		Ti and Al-modified mesoporous silica (MCM-41)		Ti and Al-hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS)

Development of Advanced Hydrogen production Process

For producing hydrogen for fuel cell from gasoline and kerosene, we intend to develop novel catalysts effective for reforming of gasoline-derived compounds (methyl- cyclohexane (MCH)) and CO shift conversion of resulting hydrogen. We tested to explore Ni-based catalysts for steam reforming of the MCH and developed Sr-modified Ni/ZrO₂ catalyst effective at 973K, a bit higher temperature than that required for usual on-board reforming. Catalyst stability of Ni/Sr/ZrO₂ at 973K was found to be more excellent than commercially available catalyst (RUA) for steam reforming of natural-gas, as shown in Fig.1. For low temperature shift reaction at 473-573K, Cu/ZnO/ZrO₂/Al₂O₃ was found to be more stable under any pretreatment conditions than Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ catalyst.

Fig. 1 Time dependences of rate of H2 formation in steam reforming of methylcyclohexane at 973K. Reaction conditions: Catalyst 1g, S/C=1.67, Temperature:973K, N2 flow: 40ml.min-1.