Confining Ni and ceria in silica shell as synergistic multifunctional catalyst for methane dry reforming reaction

Ni catalysts are the most investigated for methane dry reforming reaction, but sintering of Ni nanoparticles and deposition of carbon are great challenges for performance stability. To overcome the obstacles, synergistic multifunctional (Ni/CeO2)@SiO2 catalyst by confining Ni nanoparticles and CeO2 nanocrystals in SiO2 nano spheres is synthesized in this work. The core construction promotes reaction activity and reduces carbon deposition, and the shell confines migration of the core components to maintain their sizes. The functions contribute to the enhanced performance of methane dry reforming reaction. High resolution Transmission electron microscopy, X-ray power diffraction, Hydrogen temperature programmed reduction etc. suggest that the great enhancements are due to the synergetic multifunction of the size effect and the strong metal-support interaction from Ni and CeO2, and the confinement effect from SiO2 in the catalyst. This finding about the synergetic strategy provides an efficient way to completely resolve Ni sintering and carbon formation in methane dry reforming, and is highly applicable to other reactions that suffering sintering and carbon deposition.