Understanding the role of support structure in methane dry reforming for syngas production

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is an efficient reaction path in converting two major greenhouse gases of CO 2 and CH 4 into valuable chemical products. However, the rapid deactivation of catalysts restricts its development to a large extent. Attempts to combat the problem have been made in this work through evaluating potential supports of La 0.7 Sr 0.3 AlO 3 and SBA-15, and understanding the confinement effect of support pores, in order to construct Ni-catalysts with high activity and durability. Results show that SBA-15 support possesses better resistance to carbon deposition than La 0.7 Sr 0.3 AlO 3 , leading to a much better catalytic performance in DRM. Moreover, Ni/SBA-15 catalyst with pores smaller than approximate 10 nm is found to be able to withstand very harsh DRM reaction conditions of GHSV = 72,000 mLg cat −1 h −1 and CH 4 /CO 2  = 1.5 for 10 h at 650 °C, and the stability of catalysts is determined to be in the order of Ni/SBA-15 > Ni/SBA-15-HC > Ni/SBA-15-TMB. The reason is suggested to be the mitigation of nickel particles aggregation due to confining pores.