Effect of promoters (Ce, Sr, Cs, and Sm) on the activity and coke formation of FSA support Ni in the dry reforming of methane

Methane dry reforming was employed to evaluate the Ni/Fibrous Silica-Alumina catalyst promoted with Cs, Ce, Sr, and Sm. The catalysts were prepared via impregnation followed by the hydrothermal method. X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, temperature programmed reduction, Raman, and thermogravimetry Analysis with derivative techniques were employed to characterize them. The results exhibited that adding Cs, Ce, Sr, and Sm promotion reduced the surface area of the catalyst. The consequence of introducing the promoters positively affected the performance of the catalyst. Therefore, the incorporation of Cs with Ni/FSA enhanced the long-term activity throughout the 50 h. The temperature programmed reduction assessment revealed that the addition of Cs improved the reducibility of the Ni catalyst and dropped the reduction temperature of NiO species. Moreover, the Cs-Ni/FSA showed the lowest amount of carbon located among all specimens via thermogravimetry analysis. Cs seems to be the most effective at preventing the formation of carbon, owing to its oxidation property which assists to rid the carbon and renders the durability of the catalyst.