Spatial Separation Strategy: Targeted Construction of Regenerable Sulfur-Resistant Catalysts for Dry Reforming of Methane

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) can spontaneously use CO 2 and CH 4 to produce syngas, but minimal sulfur impurities in the feed gas can poison and deactivate the catalyst. Although the Ni/Al 2 O 3 catalyst has excellent DRM activity, it is challenging to regenerate due to sulfation of the support. Besides that, the loading of sacrificial promoters used to improve sulfur resistance, such as Cu, may impact the DRM performance of active sites. Here, a spatial separation strategy was proposed to precisely design a sulfur-resistant catalyst, dividing the catalyst into a DRM zone and a H 2 S adsorption zone. The Ni@SiO 2 @NiCu catalyst prepared by this strategy shows stable DRM performance and significantly improved sulfur resistance and can be regenerated repeatedly. The Ni@SiO 2 @NiCu catalyst has the best sulfur resistance, 6.8 times that of the spatially adjacent NiCu@SiO 2 catalyst and 1.4 times that of the Ni@SiO 2 @Cu catalyst. This spatial separation strategy introduces a novel concept for the controllable synthesis of sulfur-resistant catalysts and may inspire further applications in the design and development of such catalysts.