Syngas production through methane oxy-steam reforming over a Ni/SiO2 nanocatalyst prepared by a modified impregnation method

Synthesis gas can be converted into a number of important energy carriers and fuels and it is playing a growing role in the energy sector. In this work oxy-steam reforming of methane was performed over a modified 5%Ni/SiO2 catalyst in a fixed bed reactor at atmospheric pressure with the aim of producing syngas with high yield. The modified catalyst was synthesised by oleylamine-assisted impregnation method and characterised by X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy, N-2 physisorption measurement, temperature-programmed H-2 reduction and transmission electron microscopy. For the comparative study, an unmodified 5%Ni/SiO2 catalyst was also prepared by conventional impregnation method. The reaction test results demonstrated that the value of methane conversion and the yield of syngas over the modified catalyst were almost 2 and 2.5 times more than ones over the unmodified catalyst. During the 10 h stability test, catalytic activity of the modified catalyst remained at high and constant values (92.5%) while the unmodified catalyst was rapidly deactivated during the stability test. The effective catalytic performance of the modified catalyst was related to the nanosize nickel species that interacted with the silica support strongly.