2-1-2 Nickel catalysts supported on mixed ionic and electronic conductive materials for CO₂ reforming of methane

Abstract

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) operating at high temperatures are one of the most efficient electrochemical devices for power generation. For the efficient recovery of exhaust heat from SOFC stacks, external steam reforming of hydrocarbon fuels such as methane is generally employed in commercial SOFC systems. In this study, dry reforming reaction (DR) is proposed as the external reforming because it does not need steam generators and enables to use carbon dioxide as reactant in the anode gas. Supported Ni catalysts have been investigated by using several support materials of different oxygen ion conductivity and basicity. Among the prepared catalysts, Ni/La_0.3Sr_0.7TiO_3-δ (LST) was found to exhibit excellent activity for DR. In order to improve the catalytic activity and tolerance to carbon deposition, post treatment and basic additives were examined for Ni/LST.