Lamellar cross-linking Ni/CeO2 as an efficient and durable catalyst for dry reforming of methane

Dry reforming of methane provides a prospective process for converting greenhouse gases into syngas but suffers from the coking and sintering of catalyst at high operating temperatures. Here we report a lamellar cross-linking Ni/CeO2 catalyst that shows durable performance with 73 % CO2 and 60 % CH4 conversions for DRM at 700 °C in a continuous operation of 50 h. The sintering of Ni particles is inhibited due to the confined migration and aggregation of Ni nanoparticles provided by the lamellar CeO2 nanosheets. Meanwhile, the presence of these CeO2 nanosheets facilitates the release of lattice oxygen and the formation of oxygen vacancies, thereby generating more reactive oxygen species, as revealed by the characterization of Raman, XPS, H2-TPR and O2-TPD. The catalyst characterization using TGA and N2-TP indicates that the reactive oxygen species can realize the in-situ gasification of carbon deposition, thus achieving a balance between the rate of coke formation and carbon gasification. Due to the dynamic balance of carbon deposits, no further accumulation of carbon deposition is observed during the DRM test from 10 h to 50 h.