Catalysts for the Intensification of the Water Gas Shift Process

Nowadays the Water Gas Shift process (WGS) is performed in two stages, a first step at high temperature (HTS), carried out at 623–873 K, and a low temperature step (LTS) at 423–573 K, to reach a favorable thermodynamic equilibrium condition. This kind of configuration is expensive and requires complex operative conditions, so to make preferable process intensification. This could be achieved through the development of new structured catalytic formulations, characterized by enhanced thermal transfer properties, able to improve the heat distribution along the catalytic bed. For this purpose the most promising catalytic systems are precious metal based supported on open cells metallic foam carriers. In this paper we report a preliminary study on the preparation and the evaluation of differently-supported Pt-based catalysts, as promising precursors in the preparation of structured catalysts for the process intensification of WGS reaction.