Ethanol Dry Reforming over Mn-Doped Co/CeO2 Catalysts with Enhanced Activity and Stability

Abstract

This work mainly focused on the promotional effect of the Mn dopant on the catalytic behavior of the Co/CeO2 catalyst by selecting ethanol dry reforming as the model reaction. Herein, the as-prepared catalysts (CoCe and CoCeMn) were characterized by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, X-ray diffraction, hydrogen temperature programmed reduction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy to depict the influence of the Mn promoter on the physicochemical features. The results indicated that the presence of Mn species in the CoCeMn catalyst could improve the structural properties such as increasing the specific surface area, strengthening the active metal–support interaction, enhancing catalyst reducibility, and generating more oxygen vacancies. Generally, it was accepted that these positive factors could improve the catalytic performance. Therefore, the catalytic activity/stability of the CoCeMn catalyst was much better than that of the undoped CoCe sample. In addition, the possible mechanism of the catalyst antisintering/anticoking was also proposed to further elucidate the important role of the dopant Mn.