Low temperature reforming catalysts are desirable for intensification of the process for producing renewable liquid fuels from biogas. In this study, Ceria-Zirconia based catalysts with various metal loadings were synthesized and characterized for efficacy in the dry reforming of methane (CH
4+CO
2-->2H
2+2CO). Building upon optimal combinations and suggestions found in literature
1, various weight percentages of palladium (Pd), iron (Fe), ruthenium (Ru), or cobalt (Co) were loaded onto Ce
0.6Zr
0.4O
2 (CZO). Nickel and magnesium were also incorporated in predetermined weight percentages from published research to obtain a balance between catalyst activity and stability
2. Characterization techniques included X-ray diffraction to identify bulk composition, hydrogen temperature programmed reductions (H
2-TPR) to determine activation temperatures of catalysts, and nitrogen physisorption to define pore structures. Temperature programmed reactions were executed to verify 10% and 50% conversions of both CH
4 and CO
2 for palladium and ruthenium samples; these were prioritized due to the promising low reduction temperatures found via H
2-TPR. Ru samples gave the best performance in terms of lower reduction and conversion temperatures compared to the synthesized Pd samples and platinum (Pt) samples found in previous papers. 0.16Ru-1.4Ni-1Mg-CZO outperformed 0.16Pt-1.39Ni-1Mg-CZO and 0.16Pd-1.4Ni-1Mg-CZO by at least 20°C and 30°C, respectively. Considering the price of Ru has been, on average, 13 times cheaper than that of Pt over the past ten years
3, Ru can serve as a replacement for Pt in terms of cost and performance. Future work related to this project will involve time on stream studies to test the stability of the ruthenium catalysts and post reaction characterizations of tested catalysts.
Word Count: 253
References
(1) Elsayed, N. H.; Roberts, N. R. M.; Joseph, B.; Kuhn, J. N. Low Temperature Dry Reforming of Methane over Pt–Ni–Mg/Ceria–Zirconia Catalysts. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 2015, 179, 213–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.05.021.
(2) Sokefun, Y. O.; Joseph, B.; Kuhn, J. N. Impact of Ni and Mg Loadings on Dry Reforming Performance of Pt/Ceria-Zirconia Catalysts. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.9b01170.
(3) Xia, J.; Volokh, M.; Peng, G.; Fu, Y.; Wang, X.; Shalom, M. Low-Cost Porous Ruthenium Layer Deposited on Nickel Foam as a Highly Active Universal-PH Electrocatalyst for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction. ChemSusChem 2019, 12 (12), 2780–2787. https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201900472.
