Catalytic combustion of methane over NiO/Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 catalyst

In this work, methane combustion over Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 and NiO/Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 catalysts was investigated in the temperature range of 300–800 °C. Kinetic studies of the methane combustion over the catalysts were performed using the initial rate method. It was found that the NiO/Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 catalyst yields higher activity for methane combustion than Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 catalyst. The reaction order determined is in good agreement with a pseudo first order with respect to methane. The two-term model associated with the most adopted surface kinetic mechanism suggests differences of the NiO and Ce0.75Zr0.25O2 active sites whose activation energies for methane combustion are observed as 63.10 ± 2.51 and 74.26 ± 2.40 kJ/mol, respectively.