Promising Utilization of CO2for Syngas Production over Mg2+- And Ce2+-Promoted Ni/γ-Al2O3Assisted by Nonthermal Plasma

Abstract

Dry reforming of methane is conducted in a catalyst packed-bed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor aiming to improve the reaction efficiency. The MgO- and CeO2-promoted Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalyst is tested to carry out the reaction. An interesting observation is that Ni/MgO_Al2O3 integration provides ∼35 and 13% conversion of CH4 and CO2, respectively. The highest syngas ratio of 0.94 is obtained with Ni/MgO_Al2O3, whereas the ratio is only 0.57 with Ni/CeO2_Al2O3 and 0.64 with bare DBD. In addition, Ni/CeO2_Al2O3 offers the highest selectivity (68%) of CO due to the oxygen buffer property of CeO2. Finally, the optimal acid/base property is highly desirable for the dry reforming reaction.