Study on carbon deposition of CH4, C2H6 and C2H4 cracking over Ni-based catalysts

Influence of the additions of different type semiconductor oxides to Ni-based catalyst on the characteristics of carbon deposition of CH4, C2H6 and C2H4 cracking was studied by using pulse microreaction technique. It was discovered that, the addition of n-type semiconductor CeO2 to Ni catalyst would decrease carbon deposition activity of CH4 and C2H6 cracking, whereas the addition of p-type semiconductor Co3O4 would increase carbon deposition activity of CH4 and C2H6 cracking. On the other hand, the effect of semiconductor oxide additives on the characteristics of carbon deposition of C2H4 cracking is opposite to that of CH4 and C2H6 due to the different activated mechanism. XPS results reveal that there is a metal-semiconductor interaction (MScI) between active metal Ni and semiconductor oxide, which is the most important factor leads to the above phenomenon.