Novel catalysts for chemical CO2 utilization

Overview & Synopsis

The growing emissions of carbon dioxide forced implementation of different CO2 emissions reduction strategies, which may be divided into two main groups: (i) carbon capture and storage (CCS) and (ii) carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. The latter approach allows to recycle CO2. One of the processes that converts CO2 into added-value products is dry reforming of methane (DRM). The DRM process has not yet been commercialized due to the high endothermicity of the reaction and lack of cheap, active and stable catalysts.The materials which have beneficial properties in DRM reaction and may include desired catalysts components i.e. Ni, MgO and Al2O3 are hydrotalcites. The main goal of this PhD thesis was to evaluate catalytic performance of different hydrotalcite-based catalytic systems containing nickel in methane dry reforming process. This PhD was divided into three parts: (i) the comparison of the influence of nickel introduction into HTs-based catalytic system, (ii) the evaluation of wide range of nickel content in hydrotalcite brucite-like layers on materials catalytic properties and (iii) the evaluation of the effect of Ce and/or Zr promoters. In order to address these issues a number of different hydrotalcite-based catalysts was synthesized by co-precipitation. The physico-chemical properties of the prepared materials were evaluated by means of elemental analysis (XRF or ICP-MS), XRD, FTIR, low temperature N2 sorption, H2-TPR, CO2-TPD, TEM, SEM and TG experiments. The materials were subsequently tested in the DRM reaction. Most of catalytic tests were carried out at 550°C, but higher temperatures (650 and 750°C) were also studied.