from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Hydrogenation of CO2 to CH4 over Ni-based catalysts is a promising route for renewable energy storage. This study investigates the role of micro-mesoporous ferrierite (FER) supports in stabilising Ni clusters and enhancing catalytic performance. Hierarchical ferrierite support was obtained by controlled desilication, resulting in mesopores approximately 4 nm in size and increased mesopore volume. Nickel (20 wt.%) was introduced by impregnation and subsequently reduced in H2/N2 mixture at 400 °C. Structural characterization (SEM, TEM, XRD, N2 physisorption) revealed that Ni clusters in the desilicated sample (Ni-FER-desil.) were significantly smaller (~4 nm) and more uniformly dispersed within mesopores compared to larger (~17 nm) Ni particles on conventional FER in Ni-FER. In CO2 methanation, Ni-FER-desil. exhibited superior CO2 conversion and CH4 selectivity, with catalytic productivity approximately 1.7 times higher than Ni-FER. These results demonstrate that desilication of ferrierite enhances Ni dispersion and provides a simple, scalable strategy to improve the performance of Ni-based methanation catalysts.
Keywords: CO2 methanation, ferrierite, nickel catalysts, micro-mesoporous zeolites, dealumination, methane selectivity© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.