Low temperature ruthenium catalyst for ammonia synthesis supported on BaCeO3 nanocrystals

The nanocrystalline barium cerate (BaCeO3) was synthesized and examined as a support promoting ammonia synthesis catalyzed by particulate Ru. It was quite worthy noting that Ru/BaCeO3 catalyst exhibited superior activity to the conventional ruthenium catalysts supported on γ–Al2O3, MgO and CeO2 at low reaction temperature. The characterization including XRD, HRTEM, XPS and TPR results demonstrated that electronic interaction between Ce (IV) and Ru metals combined with strong metal-support interaction was responsible for such high catalytic activity at low reaction temperature.