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Syngas production via CO 2 reforming of methane over plasma assisted synthesized Ni‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 nanocatalysts with different Ni‐loadings
Author(s) -
Rahemi Nader,
Haghighi Mohammad,
Babaluo Ali Akbar,
Fallah Jafari Mahdi
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.3084
Subject(s) - nanomaterial based catalyst , catalysis , carbon dioxide reforming , materials science , nickel , syngas , methane , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , particle size , yield (engineering) , chemical engineering , bet theory , analytical chemistry (journal) , metallurgy , metal , chemistry , organic chemistry , engineering
SUMMARY Ni‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 nanocatalysts with 5, 10 and 15 wt.% nominal Ni content have been prepared by impregnation followed by a non‐thermal plasma treatment, characterized and tested for dry reforming of methane. For nanocatalysts characterization the following techniques have been used: XRD, FESEM, TEM, EDX dot‐mapping, BET, FTIR and XPS. The dry reforming of methane was carried out at different temperatures (550‐850 °C) using a feed mixture of CH 4 :CO 2 (1:1). Among the nanocatalysts studied, the catalyst with the medium Ni content (10 wt.%) was the most active in dry reforming of methane. This higher activity exhibited by Ni‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 catalyst with medium Ni content (10 wt.% ) can be attributed to small and well dispersed particles of Ni within the catalyst. Apart from the narrow surface particle size distribution in the case of Ni(10 wt.%)‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 , the presence of small active components with average size of 7.5 nm is proposed to be the reason for the superior performance of the catalyst. Ni(10 wt.%)‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 nanocatalyst had maximum surface area and the lower surface area was observed in the case of Ni(5 wt.%)‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 and Ni(15 wt.%)‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 due to the formation of the larger agglomeration and higher mean particle size of nickel particles, respectively. Although, GHSV enhancment had inverse effect on product yield but yield reduction for Ni‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 catalyst with 10 wt.% Ni was less drastic at high GHSVs. According to XRD and XPS, existence of NiAl 2 O 4 confirms strong interaction between Ni and support but higher loadings of Ni resulted in less NiAl 2 O 4 ; loser interaction between support and active phase. Small particles of active components and well‐defined dispersion of them in Ni(10 wt.%)‐Co/Al 2 O 3 ‐ZrO 2 nanocatalyst resulted in stability of the catalyst for either feed conversion or H 2 /CO molar ratio. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.