Synthetic natural gas production from CO2 over Ni-x/CeO2-ZrO2 (x = Fe, Co) catalysts: Influence of promoters and space velocity

Herein, the production of synthetic natural gas is proposed as an effective route for CO2 conversion. Typical catalysts for this reaction are based on Ni. In this study, we demonstrated that the addition of promoters such as iron and cobalt can greatly benefit the activity of standard Ni methanation catalysts. In particular cobalt seems to be a very efficient promoter. Our Co doped material is an outstanding catalysts for the CO2 methanation leading to high levels of CO2 conversion with selectivities close to 100%. Additionally, this catalyst is able to preserve excellent performance at relatively high space velocity which allows flexibility in the reactor design making easier the development of compact CO2 utilisation units. As an additional advantage, the Co-promoted catalysts is exceptionally stable conserving high levels of CO2 conversion under continuous operations in long terms runs.Financial support for this work has been obtained from the EPSRC grants no EP/J020184/2 and EP/R512904/1. L. Pastor-Perez acknowledges Generalitat Valenciana for her postdoctoral grant (APOSTD/2017)