Issue 30, 2017, Issue in Progress

Alkaline-promoted Ni based ordered mesoporous catalysts with enhanced low-temperature catalytic activity toward CO2 methanation

Abstract

For CO2 methanation reaction, a Mg species is often utilized as the alkaline promotor for Ni based catalysts to enhance the low-temperature catalytic activity. Herein, based on a pioneer ordered mesoporous NiO–Al2O3 catalyst, a Mg alkaline promotor had been incorporated into the ordered mesoporous framework via a one-pot evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) strategy. As a result, the ordered mesoporous NiO–MgO–Al2O3 composite oxides with Mg/Al molar ratios in a wide range (0–10%) were successfully fabricated and directly utilized as the catalysts for CO2 methanation reaction. These mesoporous catalysts were carefully characterized by X-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption–desorption, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, energy dispersive spectrometer, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, H2 temperature-programmed reduction, and CO2 temperature-programmed desorption measurements. It was found that the ordered mesoporous materials with large specific surface areas (180.8–232.8 m2 g−1), big pore volumes (0.37–0.43 cm3 g−1), and narrow pore size distributions (around 9.5 nm) could be successfully retained after the calcination at 700 °C. The highly dispersed Ni species were strongly interacted with the mesoporous framework in the form of NiAl2O4 spinel. The incorporation of the Mg progressively increased the surface basicity of these catalysts, which could intensify the chemisorption and activation of CO2 during the CO2 methanation reaction. Therefore, the low-temperature catalytic activity was significantly enhanced. The “volcano-shape curve” relationship between the Mg/Al molar ratio and catalytic activity had been interestingly observed, suggesting only appropriate surface basicity could obtain the optimum catalytic activity. Besides, there was no evident deactivation over these mesoporous catalysts after 50 h long-term stability tests due to the confinement effect of the mesoporous framework. Therefore, the present ordered mesoporous NiO–MgO–Al2O3 materials could be considered as a series of potential catalyst candidates for CO2 methanation.

Graphical abstract: Alkaline-promoted Ni based ordered mesoporous catalysts with enhanced low-temperature catalytic activity toward CO2 methanation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 Feb 2017
Accepted
20 Mar 2017
First published
27 Mar 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 18199-18210

Alkaline-promoted Ni based ordered mesoporous catalysts with enhanced low-temperature catalytic activity toward CO2 methanation

L. Xu, F. Wang, M. Chen, H. Yang, D. Nie, L. Qi and X. Lian, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 18199 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA01673E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements