CO2 Reforming of Methane over a Highly Dispersed Ni/Mg–Al–O Catalyst Prepared by a Facile and Green Method

Highly Dispersed AuCu Nanoparticles Confined in Zr-MOFs for Efficient Methanol Synthesis from CO2 Hydrogenation

Making use of novel materials to develop efficient catalysts is one of the research hotspots for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. Herein, UiO-66, a typical Zr-MOF, was modified by ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) to serve as a substrate for the synthesis of AuCu bimetallic catalysts. The resultant AuCu@UiO-66-EDTA catalyst exhibited a superior methanol production rate, which delivered a high space-time yield of methanol (3.34 gMeOH gmetal-1 h-1) at 250 °C and 3.0 MPa. The EDTA modification was found to effectively confine AuCu nanoparticles inside the framework of MOFs, which significantly reduced the metal particle size and enriched the oxygen vacancy concentration. As a consequence, more active sites were generated for methanol synthesis. Moreover, the AuCu@UiO-66-EDTA catalyst yielded more favorable reaction intermediates that could be converted to methanol at a faster rate. This work develops unique MOFs-encapsulated bimetallic catalysts and illuminates the positive effect of confinement.

Impact of preparation method on nickel speciation and methane dry reforming performance of Ni/SiO2 catalysts

The methane dry reforming reaction can simultaneously convert two greenhouse gases (CH₄ and CO₂), which has significantly environmental and economic benefits. Nickel-based catalysts have been widely used in methane dry reforming in past decade due to their low cost and high activity. However, the sintering and coke deposition of catalysts severely limit their industrial applications. In this paper, three Ni/SiO₂ catalysts prepared by different methods were systematically studied, and the samples obtained by the ammonia evaporation method exhibited excellent catalytic performance. The characterization results such as H₂-TPR, XPS and TEM confirmed that the excellent performance was mainly attributed to the catalyst with smaller Ni particles, stronger metal-support interactions, and abundant Ni-O-Si units on the catalyst surface. The anti-sintering/-coking properties of the catalyst were significantly improved. However, the Ni/SiO₂-IM catalyst prepared by impregnation method had uneven distribution of nickel species and large particles, and weak metal-support interactions, showing poor catalytic performance in methane dry reforming. Since the nickel species were encapsulated by the SiO₄ tetrahedral network, the Ni/SiO₂-SG catalyst prepared by sol-gel method could not expose more effective active sites even if the nickel species were uniformly dispersed, resulting in poor dry reforming performance. This study provides guidance for the preparation of novel anti-sintering/-coking nickel-based catalysts.

Sustainable Synthesis of a Highly Stable and Coke-Free Ni@CeO2 Catalyst for the Efficient Carbon Dioxide Reforming of Methane

A facile and green synthetic strategy is developed in this paper for the construction of an efficient catalyst for the industrially important carbon dioxide reforming of methane, which is also named the dry reforming of methane (DRM). Through controlling the synthetic strategy and Ni content, a high-performance Ni@CeO2 catalyst was successfully fabricated. The catalyst showed superb efficiency for producing the syngas with high and stable conversions at prolonged operating conditions. Incorporating Ni during the ceria (CeO2) crystallization resulted in a more stable structure and smaller nanoparticle (NP) size with a more robust interaction with the support than loading Ni on CeO2 supports by the conventional impregnation method. The H2/CO ratio was almost 1.0, indicating the promising applicability of utilizing the obtained syngas for the Fischer–Tropsch process to produce worthy chemicals. No carbon deposits were observed over the as-synthesized catalyst after operating the DRM reaction for 50.0 h, even at a more coke-favoring temperature (700 ∘C). Owing to the superb resistance to coke and sintering, control of the size of the Ni-NPs, uniform dispersion of the active phase, and potent metal interaction with the support, the synthesized catalyst achieved a magnificent catalytic activity and durability during serving for the DRM reaction for extended operating periods.

Coke-resistant Ni-based bimetallic catalysts for the dry reforming of methane: effects of indium on the Ni/Al2O3 catalyst

In the quest for highly efficient coke-resistant catalysts for the dry reforming of methane (DRM) to produce syngas, a series of Ni–In/γ-Al2O3 catalysts with various Ni contents were prepared via a “two-solvent” method and used for the DRM reaction.

Reaction-Induced Strong Metal-Support Interactions between Metals and Inert Boron Nitride Nanosheets

Encapsulation of metal nanocatalysts by support-derived materials is well known as a classical strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) effect that occurs almost exclusively with active oxide supports and often blocks metal-catalyzed surface reactions. In the present work this classical SMSI process has been surprisingly observed between metal nanoparticles, e.g., Ni, Fe, Co, and Ru, and inert hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets. We find that weak oxidizing gases such as CO₂ and H₂O induce the encapsulation of nickel (Ni) nanoparticles by ultrathin boron oxide (BO_x) overlayers derived from the h-BN support (Ni@BO_x/h-BN) during the dry reforming of methane (DRM) reaction. In-situ surface characterization and theory calculations reveal that surface B-O and B-OH sites in the formed BO_x encapsulation overlayers work synergistically with surface Ni sites to promote the DRM process rather than blocking the surface reactions.