A Review on the Different Aspects and Challenges of the Dry Reforming of Methane (DRM) Reaction

The dry reforming of methane (DRM) reaction is among the most popular catalytic reactions for the production of syngas (H₂/CO) with a H₂:CO ratio favorable for the Fischer-Tropsch reaction; this makes the DRM reaction important from an industrial perspective, as unlimited possibilities for production of valuable products are presented by the FT process. At the same time, simultaneously tackling two major contributors to the greenhouse effect (CH₄ and CO₂) is an additional contribution of the DRM reaction. The main players in the DRM arena-Ni-supported catalysts-suffer from both coking and sintering, while the activation of the two reactants (CO₂ and CH₄) through different approaches merits further exploration, opening new pathways for innovation. In this review, different families of materials are explored and discussed, ranging from metal-supported catalysts, to layered materials, to organic frameworks. DRM catalyst design criteria-such as support basicity and surface area, bimetallic active sites and promoters, and metal-support interaction-are all discussed. To evaluate the reactivity of the surface and understand the energetics of the process, density-functional theory calculations are used as a unique tool.

Ni/CeO2 Catalyst Prepared via Microimpinging Stream Reactor with High Catalytic Performance for CO2 Dry Reforming Methane

Methane reforming with carbon dioxide (DRM) is one promising way to achieve carbon neutrality and convert methane to syngas for high-value chemical production. Catalyst development with better performance is the key to its potential large-scale industrial application due to its deactivation caused by carbon deposition and metal sintering. Hence, a Ni/CeO2 catalyst (Ni/CeO2-M) with higher CO2 conversion and better stability is prepared, supported on CeO2 precipitated via a novel microimpinging stream reactor. A series of ex-situ or in-situ characterizations, such as CO titration measurements, two-step transient surface reaction (two-step TSR), CO2 and CH4 temperature-programmed surface reaction (CO2-TPSR and CH4-TPSR), X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS), and in-situ Raman spectroscopy study, were used to investigate its structure and mechanism. In contrast to Ni supported on commercial CeO2 (Ni/CeO2-C), the Ni/CeO2-M catalyst with stronger lattice oxygen mobility and higher oxygen storage capacity enhances its CO2 activation ability and carbon deposition. The Ni particle size of the Ni/CeO2-M catalyst decreased, and a higher oxidation state was obtained due to the strong metal–support interaction. Besides the reaction performance improvement of the Ni/CeO2-M catalyst, the novel microimpinging stream reactor could achieve catalyst continuous production with a high preparation efficiency. This work provides a novel method for the high-performance catalyst preparation for DRM reaction and its mechanism study gives a deep insight into high-performance catalyst development via bottom-up study.

High-Throughput Screening and Literature Data Driven Machine Learning Assisting Investigation of Multi-component La2O3-based Catalysts for Oxidative Coupling of Methane

Multi-component La2O3-based catalysts for oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) were designed based on high-throughput screening (HTS) and literature datasets with multi-output machine learning (ML) approaches including random forest regression (RFR),...