Catalytic Behavior of Nickel Particles Embedded in Three-dimensional Mesoporous SBA15

The CO2 reforming of CH4 has received increasing attention from both an environmental and an industrial perspective because the reaction can convert greenhouse gases into synthesis gas with a low H2/CO ratio. It has been known that nickel catalyst is highly active for the CO2 reforming of CH4, but it is easily deactivated due to coke formation and metal sintering during the reaction. To develop nickel catalyst resistant to the formation of coke, various materials such as metal oxides, mixed metal oxides, and zeolite have been examined as supports until now. Metal oxide supports are mostly used as fine powder to give large surface area. However, fine powder may be a disadvantage of its application as support because fine particles trend to agglomerate into large particles at high temperatures. In recent, several investigators have shown that mesoporous MCM41 or SBA15 compounds can be applied as catalyst support with high loading and dispersion without destroying the support pore hexagonal structure. SBA15 compounds are more favorable to the application as catalyst support because they have mesopores with sizes of 46-300 A and high surface area of ~800 m/g. Moreover, the recent discovery of ordered large-pore mesoporous SBA15 compound with three dimensional mesoporous networks has extended the applications of mesoporous SBA compound in catalysis and separation because it has the advantage in the diffusion and transport of large molecules compared to one-dimensional mesopore structures. This paper reports the application of mesoporous SBA15 in high temperature catalysis. The SBA15 compound with three-dimensional mesoporous networks was prepared and nickel particles were embedded within the SBA15(3D). The Ni/SBA15(3D) was examined as catalyst for the CO2 reforming of CH4 and its catalytic results were compared with those of Ni/SiO2 and Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts.