Engineering morphologies of yttrium oxide supported nickel catalysts for hydrogen production

Abstract The catalytic performance is highly related to the catalyst structure. Herein, a series of Ni nanoparticles supported on Y 2 O 3 with different morphologies were successfully synthesized via hydrothermal process screening different pH environments. These Ni/Y 2 O 3 catalysts were applied to efficiently produce CO x ‐free H 2 through ammonia decomposition. We identify a significant impact of Y 2 O 3 supports on nickel nanoclusters sizes and dispersion. The experimental results show that Ni/Y11 catalyst achieves 100% ammonia decomposition conversion under a gas hour space velocity (GHSV) of 12,000 ml·h −1 ·g cat −1 and temperature of 650 °C. Such a high level of activity over Ni/Y11 catalyst was attributed to a large specific surface area, appropriate alkalinity, and small Ni nanoparticles diameter with high dispersion.