Dry reforming of methane over Ni/La2O3 nanorod catalysts with stabilized Ni nanoparticles

•La2O2CO3 nanorods are used as support precursor to stabilize Ni nanoparticles.•The support provide abundant medium basic sites to facilitate CO2 adsorption.•The enhanced interaction between Ni and La2O3 restricts the growth of nickel particles.•The La2O2CO3 formation during the DRM process eliminates the coke deposition.

This paper describes the design of a Ni/La2O3 catalyst using La2O2CO3 nanorod as a support precursor (denoted as Ni/La2O3-LOC) via a wet impregnation method for dry reforming of methane (DRM). The results showed that La2O3 derived from the La2O2CO3 precursor maintained its initial morphology upon thermal treatment and could highly disperse Ni particles on it. Additionally, the nanorod-shaped support could provide more medium-strength basic sites to facilitate CO2 adsorption and activation on its surface. Consequently, the Ni/La2O3-LOC catalyst reached 70% of CH4 conversion and 75% of CO2 conversion at 700 °C after 50 h DRM reaction with a H2/CO ratio of 0.87. The enhanced metal-support interaction restricted the sintering of nickel particles under harsh reaction conditions. Coke evolution on the catalysts was also investigated to understand coke formation mechanism and the role of La2O2CO3 in coke elimination. It has been found that nickel dispersion can affect distribution of coke and La2O2CO3 on the surface of catalyst, both of which have a close relation with catalytic performance.

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