Facile synthesis of ordered mesoporous Ni-Zr-Al catalysts with high hydrothermal stability for CO methanation

For supported nickel catalysts used for catalytic reactions with presence of water vapor, it is a great challenge to let them have high resistance to sintering, coking as well as water vapor simultaneously. To address this problem, we synthesized a series of ternary ordered mesoporous Ni-Zr-Al metal oxide composites via an evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) and applied them to the CO methanation reaction. Compared to the ordered mesoporous Ni-Al catalyst, the ordered mesoporous Ni-Zr-Al catalyst showed much improved hydrothermal stability, because the incorporated Zr species could act as the supporter for the OMA framework, effectively preventing it from sintering-caused structural collapse and phase transition during the hydrothermal treatment; also, in a 120 h-lifetime test, the ordered mesoporous Ni-Zr-Al catalyst showed high anti-coking and anti-sintering properties, mainly because of the confinement effect of the mesopore channels as well as the incorporation of the zirconia promoter.