Engineering the structure of satellitic Pt around Ni on Al2O3 to catalyze methane dry reforming with high durability

Ni based catalysts are widely used in dry reforming of methane (DRM) but still face the issue of deactivation caused by sintering and carbon deposition. Pt doped Ni-Al 2 O 3 catalyst was found of great durability which kept 100 % conversion of CO 2 over 300 h without detectable loss in activity at 700 °C, while Ni-Al 2 O 3 catalyst only maintained ∼10 h at the same condition. It is revealed that Pt and Ni are separately dispersed on Al 2 O 3 with the structure of small Pt particles distributing around Ni like satellites. Kinetic experiments, temperature-programmed surface reactions (TPSR) and DFT calculations indicated that CH 4 prefers to dissociatively adsorb on Pt surface but is hard to deeply crack to carbon because of the high energy barriers. As a result, the respective adsorption of CO 2 on Ni and CH x on Pt surface largely reduced the bear of competitive adsorption and activation of both reactants on individual Ni and thus brought enhanced activity. Additionally, surrounding Pt effectively suppresses the sintering of Ni during reaction.