Ethanol reforming with CO2 over MOF-derived CoMOx (M:Ce,Zr,Zn): impact of support on activity/stability

Recently, bio-ethanol reforming with CO 2 (EDR) has been considered as one of the environment-friendly processes to diminish the emission of greenhouse gas, along with increasing the production of value-added syngas. However, designing high-performance catalysts is still a great challenge. In this work, MOF-derived CoMO x (M:Ce,Zr,Zn) catalysts were applied in EDR reaction for the first time to explore the influence of support types on catalytic performance. Characterization of the investigated catalysts by XPS, XRD, H 2 -TPR, Raman, TEM and BET depicted the difference in cobalt dispersion, specific surface area as well as Co-support interaction. Indeed, H 2 -TPR and XPS results revealed stronger Co-Ce interaction and the smaller particle size of Co 3 O 4 in Co-CeO 2 catalyst which contributed to higher activity. Indeed, 100% of ethanol conversion was obtained at 550 °C and the formed H 2 /CO ratio (1.18) was suitable for the downstream Fischer–Tropsch process. Meanwhile, no remarkable decline of ethanol conversion and product distributions occurred after 40 h stability tests. The findings implied that EDR process might be suitable to consume greenhouse gas and reduce carbon footprint. Characterization results of the used catalysts indicated that Co-CeO 2 catalyst presented an outstanding anti-aggregation and anti-coking property. Herein, the effect of support type in this work might provide guidance for the design of high-performance catalysts for other heterogeneous reactions operated at high temperature. Graphical abstract