Catalytic performance of La1−xErxCoO3 perovskite for the deoxidization of coal bed methane and role of erbium in a catalyst

The effective utilization of coal bed methane (CBM) is very significant for energy utilization and environmental protection, reducing significantly greenhouse gas methane emission. In this paper, La1−xErxCoO3 perovskite (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4) catalysts for the catalytic deoxidization of CBM were prepared by a co-precipitation method and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), laser Raman spectroscopy (LRS), H2 and CH4 temperature-programmed reduction (H2, CH4-TPR), CO pulse and N2adsorption/desorption techniques. The results show that the amount of Er affects obviously the physicochemical and catalytic properties of La1−xErxCoO3, and when x = 0.2, La0.8Er0.2CoO3 exhibits the best activity for deoxidization of CBM, because Er doping promotes the activity and migration of the lattice oxygen of La0.8Er0.2CoO3. The influences of the operation parameters (methane concentration, oxygen concentration and space velocity) on the catalytic deoxygenation of CBM and the kinetics behaviours were investigated. The reaction order of removing oxygen is 0.9 for methane partial pressure and −0.6 for oxygen partial pressure.