Beneficial effects of nickel promoter on the efficiency of alumina-supported Co3O4 catalysts for lean methane oxidation

In this work bimetallic Ni catalysts supported over Co-Al2O3 and monometallic Co-Al2O3 and Ni-Al2O3 catalysts were examined for the complete oxidation of methane. With a 30 % total metallic loading, the samples were synthesized by a sequential precipitation route. All samples were characterized by nitrogen physisorption, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, scanning-transmission electron microscopy, X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and temperature-programmed reduction with hydrogen and methane. Their catalytic performance was investigated in the temperature range of 200–600 °C with a space velocity of 60.000 h−1. The bimetallic catalysts showed a better behavior in the oxidation reaction than the monometallic counterparts, mainly due to the good dispersion of Ni on the surface of the Co-Al2O3 samples. This has enabled the insertion of Ni2+ ions into the cobalt spinel lattice, which in turn provoked an increase in the amount of Co3+ species, and a subsequent enhanced mobility of oxygen species in the spinel. In this sense, the 5Ni/25Co catalyst showed the best performance, thus reducing the value of the T50 by 25 °C with respect to the monometallic catalysts.