Gold, silver and copper catalysts supported on TiO2 for pure hydrogen production

A catalytic study of the hydrogen production by CO water gas shift reaction (WGSR) on gold, silver and copper particles supported on TiO2 has been carried out. A deep characterisation of the catalysts by TPR and FTIR has been performed. Silver catalyst exhibits no catalytic activity, copper and gold catalysts show intermediate and very high performances, respectively. These strong differences have been interpreted on the basis of FTIR data of CO adsorption at 90 K and on the effect of coadsorbed species. Gold and copper catalysts, either oxidised or reduced, are able to adsorb CO. Reduced silver catalyst does not adsorb CO at all, while oxidised silver catalyst does quite strongly.