Using molecular oxygen to partially oxidize hydrocarbons to synthesize valuable products has become essential in catalysis. The simplest hydrocarbon methane is of interest due to being able to make syngas (H2 and CO) when partially oxidized. A daunting task due to the ease of fully oxidizing to CO2. Due to this ease, choosing a catalyst with high syngas selectivity is desired, such as the precious earth metal catalysts platinum. While syngas can be easily made through platinum, its excessive cost has made alternatives desirable. Nickel also has high activity while less costly. However, Ni comes with two caveats, ease in particle agglomeration and carbon growth, which leads to deactivation. Due to this, using a support to minimize the amount of Ni used and using a co-metal to aid instability is a large part of heterogeneous nickel catalysis research. Herein the effect of tungsten on the stability of Ni-CeO2 catalysts was studied. While W does not aid in conversion, the stability increases immensely by adding small amounts of W to the catalyst. Stability increased by ten times for the best catalyst, and the most stable catalyst was twenty times more stable than the Ni-Ceria standard. Using many pre- and post-reaction characterizations such as TEM, XRD, Raman, XPS, and EELs, the role of W was alleviated. Stability occurs by WO3 fusing into the Ni-CeO2, changing the overall structure of the catalyst.

Partial oxidation of methane using NiW CeO2

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ACS Fall 2022

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