(Project concluded on November 30, 2020)

The preferencial CO oxidation (PROX) have been one of the most suitable methods of purification of H2 to meet the requirement for the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) application, where the CO concentration should be controlled to be less than 10 ppm to avoid the degradation of fuel cell performance. Moreover, PROX catalysts that can selectively remove high concentrations of CO (above 1% vol) could contribute to reduce the size of fuel processor by minimizing the water-gas shift reactor. Despite the advances the development of more active and stable catalysts is still in need. This research project aims to the development of supported nanostructured metals catalysts more active and stable for PROX reaction at low temperatures (around 100oC). Recent works on the literature have been shown that a high dispersion of the noble metal nanoparticles as well the presence of metal species that could adsorb and activate O2 species leads to a more active and stable catalysts at low reaction temperature. In this work, the catalyst will be prepared by two methodologies: an alcohol-reduction process developed at IPEN and by sol-gel, which permit to obtain a high dispersion of metal nanoparticles. Also, the composition of the catalyst will contain a combination of a noble and oxophilic metals.