Novel nickel promoted illite clay based catalyst for autothermal dry reforming of methane

• Illite natural clay is an interesting support for the autothermal reforming of CH4.
• The addition of Ce increases the surface area and the dispersion of nickel particles.
• The best catalytic activity and stability are obtained with the catalyst containing 15% in weight of Ce.
• High CH4 and CO2 conversions are maintain during 4 h on stream in the presence of O2.

A series of Ni–Ce catalysts supported on illite clay containing different cerium loading were tested with respect to autothermal reforming of methane at 800 °C using a GHSV = 60,000 mL g−1 h−1. The addition of oxygen in the gaseous reactant feed, under the used experimental condition was found to play a key role since the carbon balance is significantly higher as compared to CH4/CO2 mixture.The addition of cerium was found to enhance the specific surface area as result of meso-porosity development. Furthermore, the nickel particles become smaller in the presence of Ce, decreasing the Ni° average size from 34.2 for 10Ni to 16.3 nm for 10Ni15Ce. The best catalytic activity and stability were obtained on the catalyst containing 15 wt.% of cerium, apparently attributed to its redox properties and further improvement on the nickel dispersion. It should be pointed out that the observed catalytic performance was high even after 24 h under reaction stream.

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