It was demonstrated for the first time that highly active Cu/ZnO catalysts for hydrogen production from steam reforming of methanol could be obtained by a dry mechanochemical approach based on oxalate precursor synthesis. Highly strained copper nanocrystals combined with a higher metallic copper surface area achievable account for the higher performance of the mechanochemically derived catalysts compared with their conventional counterparts prepared by coprecipitation method. It was proposed that the beneficial isomorphous substitution between cupric and zinc oxalate precursors could be significantly enhanced by increasing the milling time during the mechanochemical synthesis, which results in enhanced interaction be-tween copper and zinc oxide, thus leading to superior catalytic performance in methanol steam reforming.

Key words: steam reforming of methanol, Cu/ZnO catalyst, mechanochemical method, oxalate, lattice microstrain