PNNL

Abstract

A brief review of water gas shift (WGS) catalysis is provided. An overview of the four general classes of WGS catalysts is presented, which include: 1) high temperature shift (HTS), 2) low temperature shift (LTS), 3) sulfur-tolerant shift catalysts, and 4) precious metal-based shift catalysts. A review of WGS utilizing monoliths or other reactor technologies that pertain to fuel cell applications, an area of increasing interest over the past several years, is also presented. Ratnasamy and Wagner have recently provided an outstanding and comprehensive review of WGS catalysis. A particular emphasis of that work is “catalyst surface structures, active sites, reaction intermediates, and mechanisms”, particularly for noble metal-based catalysts1. The summary provided here is a succinct review of water gas shift catalysis and reactors, with an emphasis on fuel processing applications for fuel cells, and is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of WGS technology.