Autothermal reforming of methane over nickel catalysts supported on nanocrystalline MgAl2O4 with high surface area

In this paper autothermal reforming of methane (ATR) was carried out over MgAl2O4 supported Ni catalysts with various Ni loadings. MgAl2O4 spinel with high specific surface area, as nanocrystalline carrier for nickel catalysts was synthesized by co-precipitation method with the addition of pluronic P123 triblock copolymer as surfactant. The prepared samples were characterized by XRD, BET, TEM, SEM, TPR and TPH techniques. The results demonstrated that methane conversion is significantly increased with increasing the Ni content and methane conversion of 15% Ni/MgAl2O4 was higher than that of other catalysts in all operation temperatures. Furthermore the influences of H2O/CH4, and O2/CH4 molar ratio in feed and GHSV on activity of 5% Ni/MgAl2O4 catalyst were investigated.