Immobilization of Ni on MOF-derived CeO2 for promoting low-temperature dry reforming of methane

The development of highly active catalysts for low-temperature dry reforming of methane (DRM) is of great importance for the utilization of CO2 and CH4. Herein, the MOF-derived CeO2-supported Ni (Ni/CeO2-M) catalyst was facilely and mildly prepared, and its catalytic performance for DRM reactions at 400–600 °C was explored and compared with commercial CeO2-supported Ni (Ni/CeO2-C). At 550 °C, the CO2 and CH4 conversions of Ni/CeO2-M are 40.1 % and 30.8 %, respectively, which are significantly higher than those of Ni/CeO2-C (27.3 % and 15.5 %, respectively). The analysis of covariance also shows that the conversions of CO2 and CH4 of Ni/CeO2-M are 8.90 % and 11.65 % higher than those of Ni/CeO2-C after eliminating the effect of temperature, respectively. After 10 h of DRM reaction, Ni/CeO2-M exhibits better resistance to carbon deposition and sintering than Ni/CeO2-C, and carbon deposition is related to the reaction temperature rather than the catalyst. Morphological analysis suggests that, unlike the serious Ni accumulation on Ni/CeO2-C, metallic Ni is uniformly immobilized on Ni/CeO2-M. The highly dispersed metallic Ni0 on Ni/CeO2-M facilitates the dissociation of CH4, and more oxygen vacancies facilitate the dissociation of CO2 into CO and active O. Therefore, Ni/CeO2-M exhibits better catalytic performance and is very promising for low-temperature DRM reactions.