Plasma-assisted CO 2 methanation: effects on the low-temperature activity of an Ni–Ce catalyst and reaction performance

Ni–Ce three-dimensional material with macropore diameter of 146.6 ± 8.4 nm was synthesized and used as a methanation catalyst. Firstly, H 2 reduction of the catalyst was conducted in the thermal fixed bed and plasma reactor, respectively, then X-ray diffraction (XRD) and CO 2 temperature programmed desorption experiments on the two reduced samples were carried out to reveal the plasma effect on the catalyst's physico-chemical properties. It was found that plasma reduction created more abundant basic sites for CO 2 adsorption, in particular the medium basic sites were even doubled compared with the thermal-reduced catalysts. The plasma-reduced catalyst exhibited excellent low-temperature activity, ca 50–60°C lower than the thermal catalyst (the maximum CO 2 conversion point). Based on the optimum reduced catalyst, plasma effect in the reactor level was further investigated under high gas hour space velocity of approximately 50 000 h −1 . The plasma reactor showed higher CO 2 conversion capacity and efficiency than the thermal reactor.