Effect of Ni particle size on the production of renewable methane from CO_(2) over Ni/CeO_(2) catalyst

摘要

Production of’renewable Methane’has attracted renewed research interest as a fundamental probe reaction and process for CO_(2)utilization through potential use in Cl fuel production and even for future space exploration technologies.CO_(2)methanation is a structure sensitive reaction on Ni/CeO_(2)catalysts.To precisely elucidate the size effect of the Ni metal center on the CO_(2)methanation performance,we prepared2%Ni/CeO_(2)catalysts with pre-synthesized uniform Ni particles(2,4 and 8 nm)on a high surface area CeO_(2)support.Transmission electron microscopy(TEM)and ambient pressure X-ray photo spectroscopy(AP-XPS)characterization have confirmed that the catalyst structure and chemical state was uniform and stable under reaction conditions.The 8 nm sized catalyst showed superior methanation selectivity over the 4 and 2 nm counterparts,and the methanation activity in term of TOF is 10 times and 70 times higher than for the 4 and 2 nm counterparts,respectively.The DRIFTS studies revealed that the larger Ni(8 nm particles)over CeO_(2)efficiently facilitated the hydrogenation of the surface formate intermediates,which is proposed as the rate determining step accounting for the excellent CO_(2)methanation performance.