Perovskites and exsolution: new catalysts for Methane Dry Reforming reaction

Methane Dry Reforming could be a solution to exploit two powerful GHGs, methane and carbon dioxide, to produce hydrogen in a more sustainable way, but the catalytic system suffer of a fast deactivation. This due to sinterization and coke depostion. To minimize these effects, perovskites was studied. A perovskite structure was synthesized to obtain La0.8Ce0.2Fe0.7Ni0.3O3 and then it was treated in a reducing environment at high temperature (800°C) to carry out what is called "exsolution". This phenomenon should exstract part of the elements from perovskite structure, forming metal nanoparticles in surface. This is the active phase, that should be better anchored to support, better dispersed and so be more resistant against deactivation. The study is focused on investigating the best exsolution conditions to obtain the best active phase for Methane Dry Reforming catalytic purposes.