Ru/Ce/Ni Metal Foams as Structured Catalysts for the Methanation of CO2

Stefano Cimino,Elisabetta Maria Cepollaro,Stefano Fasolin,Lourdes Vázquez-Gómez,Luciana Lisi,Marco Musiani

doi:10.3390/catal11010013

Stefano Cimino, Elisabetta Maria Cepollaro + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/catal11010013

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Abstract

The development of highly conductive structured catalysts with enhanced mass- and heat-transfer features is required for the intensification of the strongly exothermic catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 in which large temperature gradients should be avoided to prevent catalyst deactivation and to control selectivity. Therefore, in this work we set out to investigate the preparation of novel structured catalysts obtained from a commercial open cell Ni foam with high pore density (75 ppi) onto which a CeO2 layer was deposited via electroprecipitation, and, eventually, Ru was added by impregnation. Composite Ru/Ce/Ni foam catalysts, as well as simpler binary Ru/Ni and Ce/Ni catalysts were characterized by SEM-EDX, XRD, cyclic voltammetry, N2 physisorption, H2-temperature programmed reduction (TPR), and their CO2 methanation activity was assessed at atmospheric pressure in a fixed bed flow reactor via temperature programmed tests in the range from 200 to 450 °C. Thin porous CeO2 layers, uniformly deposited on the struts of the Ni foams, produced active catalytic sites for the hydrogenation of CO2 at the interface between the metal and the oxide. The methanation activity was further boosted by the dispersion of Ru within the pores of the CeO2 layer, whereas the direct deposition of Ru on Ni, by either impregnation or pulsed electrodeposition methods, was much less effective.

Highlights

Power-to-Gas (PtG) is a valuable technological option in order to foster the transition to renewable energy sources, representing a strategy for CO2 capture and utilization as well as a chemical storage of energy [1]
In this work we set out to investigate the preparation and CO2 methanation activity of novel structured catalysts obtained from a commercial open cell Ni foam with high pore density (75 ppi) onto which a CeO2 layer was deposited via electroprecipitation, and, eventually Ru was added by impregnation
To obtain Ru/CeO2/Ni catalysts, Ru was deposited onto precut Ni foam disks modi2

Summary

Introduction

Power-to-Gas (PtG) is a valuable technological option in order to foster the transition to renewable energy sources, representing a strategy for CO2 capture and utilization as well as a chemical storage of energy [1]. The commercial process for SNG production makes use of adiabatic, packed bed reactors in series with inter-stage cooling and/or large product gas recycling [4,5] Due to their outstanding heat- and mass-transfer features, coupled to high thermal and mechanical stability as well as low pressure drops, metallic foams are a valuable choice to contrast hot spot formation and reduce the size of the reactor needed to reach high conversions [10,11] when dealing with highly exothermic and possibly diffusion limited processes such as catalytic combustion [12,13,14], catalytic partial oxidation [15,16,17,18,19,20], and methanation [7,21,22,23,24]. Highly conductive structured catalysts are promising for the intensification of a number of existing strongly exothermic/endothermic catalytic processes in which large temperature gradients should be avoided to prevent catalyst deactivation and to control selectivity [25]

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