Engineering matched activation on a bifunctional NiRu catalyst for efficient photothermal dry reforming of methane

Abstract Photothermal catalytic dry reforming of methane (DRM) offers a sustainable route for carbon conversion but suffers from kinetic imbalance between CH 4 and CO 2 activation. To address the fundamental challenge, we design a bifunctional NiRu‐MgO/MgAl 2 O 4 catalyst, where the metal alloy and basic oxide support are tailored to synergistically activate CH 4 and CO 2 , respectively. The balanced activation enables exceptional and stable performance under high‐throughput conditions, and the optimized catalyst achieved CO 2 and CH 4 conversion rates of 91.3% and 80.9%, respectively, with stable operation for 50 h at a high gas hourly space velocity of 360 L h −1 g −1 . Mechanistic studies reveal that the superior performance originated from a novel light‐induced reaction pathway via a key CH 3 O* intermediate. The work underscores that engineering matched activation on bifunctional sites, powered by photothermal synergy, is a key design principle for efficient and stable DRM catalysis under practical conditions.