Methane oxy-steam reforming over a highly efficient Ni/Al2O3 nanocatalyst prepared by microwave-assisted impregnation method

An alumina-supported nickel catalyst was prepared by impregnation of Ni2 solution onto mesoporous alumina under microwave irradiation (denoted as M-Ni/Al2O3). For comparison, a catalyst with the same nickel content was prepared by conventional impregnation method (denoted as UM-Ni/Al2O3). Both M-Ni/Al2O3 and UM-Ni/Al2O3 catalysts were applied to the syngas (H2 CO) production by methane oxy-steam reforming in order to investigate the effect of preparation method on the catalytic performance. The reaction experiments were performed in a fixed-bed continuous flow reactor under atmospheric pressure. M-Ni/Al2O3 catalyst exhibited higher methane conversion (XCH4: 0.94) than UM-Ni/Al2O3 (XCH4: 0.58) in the oxy-steam reforming reaction. In addition, the value of syngas yield in M-Ni/Al2O3 (3.21 mole per mole of methane) was almost twice of one for UM-Ni/Al2O3 catalyst (1.59 mole per mole of methane). Various operating conditions such as the influences of the O2/CH4 and H2O/CH4 feed ratios, temperature, and GHSV on the methane conversion and yield of products were investigated. According to the structural characterization (FTIR, XRD, N2 adsorption/desorption, H2-TPR and TEM), the excellent catalytic performance of M-Ni/Al2O3 catalyst was reasonably attributed to the nano size and uniform distributed nickel species (