Steam reforming of methane over a nickel-based catalyst

Despite steam reforming of methane (SRM) has been the dominant way to produce hydrogen in industrial owing to its large hydrogen production capacity, easy accessibility of feedstocks and relative low cost, the development of high-efficient catalysts is still of great significance. In this work, we report the synthesis, characterizations and evaluation of Nickel-aluminum spinel (NiAl₂O₄) catalyst in SRM reaction. Compared with Ni/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst prepared by impregnation, NiAl₂O₄ presents higher methane conversion. Virous of characterizations exhibit NiAl₂O₄ possesses higher distribution of Ni and smaller Ni nanoparticle size, which is one of advantages for its high activity. Another vital reason is the generation of oxygen vacancies in spinel during the reduction, which is beneficial for the activation of water. Moreover, NiAl₂O₄ catalyst shows extremely stability without obvious deactivation in 160 h. This study illustrates that the construction of catalyst with high activity and stability via NiAl₂O₄ spinel and reals its high activity origination.