Methane can be converted efficiently into syngas via dry reforming, with H2/CO ratio preferred for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The current work is devoted to address the catalyst deactivation in the dry reforming of methane because of metal sintering and carbon deposition. The main objective of the work is to develop a cost effective catalytic platform which protects the active metal from deactivation while keeping a high level of active site accessibility. The use of precious noble metal is avoided without compromising the higher degree of conversions. All the synthesized catalysts are evaluated for the dry reforming of methane at 800 °C. The novel Hydrotalcite-Zirconia composite (HT-ZrO2) supported Ni catalyst shows much higher conversions of CH4 and CO2 compare to ZrO2 or calcined hydrotalcite (HT) supported Ni catalysts. Approximately four times more Ni loading is required to achieve similar conversions if HT is used as a support instead of HT-ZrO2. The XRD study indicates smaller particle size of Ni on HT-ZrO2 and no phase transition of ZrO2 during the synthesis. The TPR analysis shows that reduction temperature of Ni is much lower when supported on the HT-ZrO2 compare to HT. The XPS study shows that binding energy of Ni varies with varying support material. Characterization techniques like HR-TEM, STEM, SAXS, etc. are used to explore the morphological properties of the catalysts. The physio-chemical properties of Ni vary with the support material and are strongly affected by the support-metal interaction. The effects of metal loading and composition of HT-ZrO2 composite on the catalyst properties are studied to explain its role in catalysis. The catalytic activities of different catalysts at optimized reaction conditions are compared in Figure 1.

Hydrotalcite-zirconia composite as co-catalyst for the dry reforming of methane

255th National Meeting (2018)

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