Steam Reforming of Ethanol Over Cobalt Catalyst Modified with Small Amount of Iron Yasushi Sekine Æ Atsushi Kazama Æ Yoshiyuki Izutsu Æ Masahiko Matsukata Æ Eiichi Kikuchi Received: 7 June 2009 / Accepted: 18 August 2009 / Published online: 2 September 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Steam reforming of ethanol was examined over Co/SrTiO 3 with addition of another metal—Pt, Pd, Rh, Cr, Cu, or Fe—for promotion of the catalytic activity. Ethanol conversion and H 2 yield were improved greatly by adding Fe or Rh at 823 K. Although Rh addition promoted CH 4 formation, Fe addition enhanced steam reforming of etha- nol selectively. A suitable amount of Fe loading was in the window of 0.33–1.3 mol%. A comparative study of the reaction over a catalyst supported on SiO 2 was conducted, but no additional effect of Fe was observed on the Co/SiO 2 catalyst. High activity of Fe/Co/SrTiO 3 catalyst came from interaction among Fe, Co, and SrTiO 3 . Keywords Steam reforming of ethanol  Effect of Fe-addition  Perovskite oxide support 1 Introduction Recently, biomass has held the spotlight as an alternative energy resource to fossil fuels. After fermentation during ethanol production, much water coexists in the fermenta- tion liquor. Unfortunately, for the alternative use of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline, water must be removed com- pletely. In contrast, steam reforming of ethanol is applicable directly without rectification and generates a hydrogen-rich high-calorie gas. The generated hydrogen is available for multiple purposes such as use in fuel cells. This direct hydrogen production process can be a process for production of a clean energy source of the next gen- eration [1]. To date, various transition metal catalysts have been tested on steam reforming of ethanol [2–14]. Some reports have described that noble metals such as Rh exhibited high catalytic activity and high stability [2, 3], although the use of a noble metal was undesirable because of its high cost. On the other hand, previous reports show that Ni [4, 5] and Co [6–14] exhibit activity for steam reforming of ethanol. In fact, Ni catalyst shows high activity and high stability when a basic support such as La 2 O 3 [4] was used as a support. In addition, Ni catalyst shows high conversion of ethanol at low temperatures (523 K), although much CH 4 was formed as a byproduct [5]. The Ni catalysts showed insufficient activity to obtain high H 2 yield. Therefore, among various transition metal catalysts, Co catalysts which can suppress generation of CH 4 [6], have been investigated actively. However, serious problems such as sintering and carbon deposition occur over Co catalysts [7]. To avoid deactivation of the catalyst, the use of proper supports and optimization of the structure of active metals are required. Stabilization of activity has been observed over Co catalysts using basic supports such as MgO [2] and ZnO [8]. Additionally, previous reports show that Co cat- alysts can suppress coke deposits through addition of sodium to the catalyst [9]; Ru addition was the most effective among noble metal additives (Pt, Pd, Ru, Ir) [10]. Furthermore, the tolerance to coke formation of the support is important. Basic oxides such as MgO, CeO 2 and perovskite are generally known as having characteristics of coke-free catalyst supports. Y. Sekine (&)  A. Kazama  Y. Izutsu  M. Matsukata  E. Kikuchi Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: ysekine@waseda.jp Y. Sekine CREST, Tokyo, Japan 123 Catal Lett (2009) 132:329–334 DOI 10.1007/s10562-009-0133-6