Effect of promoters on the catalytic performance of Ni/Al2O3 catalyst for partial oxidation of methane to syngas

The effect of promoters such as Ce, La and Ca on catalytic performance of Ni catalyst was measured in a continuous fixed bed reactor. The effect of promoters on Ni/alpha-Al2O3 catalyst is more significant than on Ni/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst. Ce was proved to be the best promoter among the three promoters tested and the optimum loading of Ce was 1%. The catalyst was characterized by TG, XPS, TPR and XRD techniques. TPR results showed that Ce can improve the reducibility of the Ni/Al2O3 catalyst. XRD results indicated that Ce was highly dispersed when its loading was low, but at higher loading it was crystallized into bulk CeO2, thus, decreased the catalytic activity.