A stable Ni/SBA-15 catalyst prepared by the ammonia evaporation method for dry reforming of methane

A stable Ni/SBA-15 catalyst was prepared by an ammonia evaporation (Ni-AE) method for dry reforming of methane. The characterization results exhibited that the highly dispersed and uniformly distributed Ni nanoparticles with strong metal-support interactions can be obtained by the ammonia evaporation method. The presence of Ni phyllosilicate was crucial to obtain Ni nanoparticles with a size of 3.2-5.2 nm after reduction by H-2, which were smaller and exhibited a narrower size distribution than in the sample prepared by impregnation (Ni-IM). Dry reforming of methane reactivity results showed no observed decrease of activity for Ni-AE even when reacted at 800 degrees C for 100 min or 700 degrees C for 100 h, while the Ni-IM presented an obvious decrease under the same conditions. TEM images of spent Ni-AE catalyst further confirmed that the Ni nanoparticles were highly dispersed, and the weight loss of Ni-AE (2.09%) revealed by the TG curves is much lower than that of the Ni-IM sample (24.16%). The strong metal-support interactions derived from Ni phyllosilicate were mainly responsible for resistance to coking and sintering.