Study of the effect of the preparation route and the palladium precursor on the methane oxidation behavior over Al2O3-ZrO2 supported palladium

The role of palladium precursors and the preparation route in the catalytic properties of Pd/Al2O3-ZrO2 catalysts toward methane oxidation was investigated in this paper. The palladium precursors were Pd acetylacetonate Pd(C5H7O2)(2) and palladium nitrate Pd(NO3)(2). Catalysts were prepared by using either sol-gel or wet impregnation. All catalysts were characterized by N-2 physiorption, H-2 chemisorption, H-2 TPR, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The obtained results suggested that the use of different palladium precursors and preparation routes played an important role in the properties of the catalysts. The use of palladium acetylacetonate as precursor for the impregnation method generated more active catalysts. However, sol-gel prepared catalyst presented better textural properties with moderate catalytic activities.