Methanol decomposition

In collaboration with Prof. T. Tsoncheva Hristova, IOCCP-BAS (Sofia, Bulgaria) – CNR-BAS Agreement bilateral project “Advanced nanostructured catalysts for hydrogen production from biomass and its integration in bio-refineries’ processes “ 2013-2015.

In the last two decades methanol has been offered as suitable hydrogen carrier, as it could be produced by well-known technologies from available and renewable sources and easily convert back to hydrogen or syngas by different catalytic processes, like decomposition, steam reforming or partial oxidation. Now several plants for bio-methanol production from bio-mass (Japan), black-liquor (Sweden), waste glycerol from the bio- diesel production (Neederlands) or waste CO₂ (Island, Canada) has been built.
In order to enhance the application of these catalytic processes for industrial and especially for mobile installations, the problem with development of catalysts, working with high selectivity and catalytic activity at relatively low temperatures should be solved.
Currently, various methods for the preparation and stabilization on various supports (mesoporous oxides and carbon materials, for instance) of highly dispersed transition metal nano-particles are under development.