Dry reforming of methane over Ni/CeO 2 catalysts prepared by three different methods

Cerium-supported nickel catalysts with Ni loading close to 15%wt were synthesized using three different methods (microemulsion, sol-gel and autocombustion) with the aim to design efficient catalysts for the dry reforming of methane to produce syngas (H 2 +CO) from methane and carbon dioxide. The catalytic test was performed after calcining the as-prepared samples at 973 K, and subsequent in situ reduction was performed under hydrogen flow at 873 K. The resulting catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherm measurements. The obtained results show that the Ni/CeO 2 sample prepared by autocombustion is more active than a catalyst prepared by the sol-gel method, and the rate conversions of CH 4 and CO 2 are about 53%, 53% and 22%, 28%, respectively. The good activity of a catalyst prepared by the autocombustion can be due to the presence of the monoclinic phase of NiO revealed by the XRD and TPR characterizations. However, the catalyst prepared by the microemulsion method does not show any catalytic activity in this catalytic test.