Promoting Dry Reforming of Methane Catalysed by Atomically-Dispersed Ni over Ceria-Upgraded Boron Nitride.

Abstract

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is a very promising protocol to mitigate the greenhouse gases by making use of CO2 and CH4 to produce valuable syngas. Ni-based catalysts exhibit high activity and low cost for DRM, but suffer from inferior stability because of serious carbon deposition. Herein, we proposed atomically dispersed Ni supported by ceria-upgraded boron nitride whose specific activity exceeds that of boron nitride-supported Ni by 3 times. The results of temperature-programmed surface reaction show ceria enhanced the adsorption of CO2 and its surface-active oxygen species would contribute to the activation of CH4 . Moreover, Ni exhibited a strong metal-support interaction which suppressed the metal sintering during the DRM reaction while the incorporation of BN could suppress carbon deposition. The incorporation of active metal oxides into inert support provides a route to adjust the interaction between metal and support, and to achieve a synergistic improvement in catalytic performance.