Usman Oemar, S. Kawi, and K. Hidajat. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Department of ChBE, NUS, 117585, Singapore, Singapore
CO2 reforming of methane has received considerable attention recently since this reaction is one of the potential solutions to reduce CO2 and CH4 (the two largest greenhouse effect gases) in large amount. In this work, PdNi catalysts over several commercial metal oxides as the catalyst supports were synthesized using incipient wet impregnation method. The activities have been investigated at 873-1073 K using different feed ratios in a fixed-bed continuous-flow reactor. The PdNi catalyst gives much higher hydrogen production than either monometallic Pd or Ni catalysts due to the formation of Pd-Ni alloy which is in agreement with XRD results. Our findings also show that PdNi/SiO2 is the best catalyst among all the tested synthesized catalysts to produce hydrogen at an optimum temperature of 973 K and the higher the specific surface area of the support, the higher the hydrogen production is. TGA study shows that the amount of carbon formation on the catalyst depends on the acidity of the catalyst, the specific surface area of the support and the metal-support interaction. The catalytic performance of these catalysts has also been tested in dissociation of carbon dioxide and methane. The reactivity of the surface carbon formed has also been examined.