Abstract
Recently, because of the increasing demand for natural gas and the reduction of greenhouse gases, interests have focused on producing synthetic natural gas (SNG), which is suggested as an important future energy carrier. Hydrogenation of CO2, the so-called methanation reaction, is a suitable technique for the fixation of CO2. Nickel supported on yttrium oxide and promoted with cobalt were prepared by the wet-impregnation method respectively and characterized using SBET, XRD, FTIR, XPS, TPR, and HRTEM/EDX. CO2 hydrogenation over the Ni/Y2O3 catalyst was examined and compared with Co–Ni/Y2O3 catalysts, Co% = 10 and 15 wt/wt. The catalytic test was conducted with the use of a fixed-bed reactor under atmospheric pressure. The catalytic performance temperature was 350 °C with a supply of H2:CO2 molar ratio of 4 and a total flow rate of 200 mL/min. The CH4 yield was reached 67%, and CO2 conversion extended 48.5% with CO traces over 10Co–Ni/Y2O3 catalyst. This encourages the direct methanation reaction mechanism. However, the reaction mechanism over Ni/Y2O3 catalyst shows different behaviors rather than that over bi-metal catalysts, whereas the steam reforming of methane reaction was arisen associated with methane consumption besides increase in H2 and CO formation; at the same temperature reaction.
