Highly dispersed Fe-decorated Ni nanoparticles prepared by atomic layer deposition for dry reforming of methane

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is a sustainable chemical process that can simultaneously transform methane and carbon dioxide, which are generally considered greenhouse gases, into syngas with H2/CO ratio close to 1. The deposition of carbon on the active sites during long-period DRM tests will lead to severe deactivation of Ni-based catalysts. Thus, in this work, we proposed a series of uniformly dispersed Fe-decorated Ni/Al2O3 catalysts via atomic layer deposition (ALD) to solve this key issue. Modification with trace amounts of Fe (0.3–0.6%) had multiple effects on facilitating the CH4 dissociation on Ni0, improving the low-temperature catalytic activity, moderating the carbon species and accelerating coke oxidation. The sample denoted as 0.3%Fe/Ni/Al2O3 exhibited almost no activity loss in the 72 h test at 650 °C. The Fe-decorated Ni/Al2O3 structure achieved a balance between the enhancement of CH4 cracking and the elimination of coke. Furthermore, this advanced ALD approach of preparing uniform secondary metal nanoparticle-decorated catalysts provided guidance to other bimetallic systems, such as Pt/Ni, Mn/Ni, and Cu/Ni.