Synthesis of Nickel‐Doped Ceria Catalysts for Selective Acetylene Hydrogenation
Abstract
Metallic nickel is known to be an active, but not a selective hydrogenation catalyst for conversion of alkynes to alkenes. On the other hand, nickel oxide is not active. Recently, we have demonstrated that nickel doped into ceria provides an inexpensive catalyst for selective hydrogenation of acetylene in the presence of ethylene. Here, we evaluate various synthesis methods to achieve optimal selective hydrogenation performance. We examined incipient wetness impregnation, coprecipitation, solution combustion, and sol‐gel synthesis to study how the method of preparation affects catalytic structure and behavior. Sol‐gel synthesis, coprecipitation, and solution combustion synthesis methods favor nickel incorporation into the ceria lattice, while incipient wetness impregnation creates segregated nickel species on the ceria surface. For hydrogenation of acetylene, these nickel surface species lead to poor ethylene selectivity due to ethane and oligomer formation. However, when nickel is incorporated into the ceria lattice, ethane formation is prevented even while achieving 100 % conversion of acetylene. Coke formation is also significantly reduced on these catalysts compared to conventional nanoparticle counterparts. We conclude that sol‐gel synthesis provides the optimal method for creating a uniform dopant distribution within the high surface area ceria.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 14, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1002/cctc.201801976
Entities
People
- Abhaya Datye
- Andrew De La Riva
- Christopher Riley
- Eric M Peterson
- Holger B. Friedrich
- Hua Guo
- Kateryna Artyushkova
- Laura Burkemper
- Majid D. Farahani
- Nicu‐viorel Atudorei
- Qiang Wan
- Sen Lin
- Shulan Zhou
Organizations
- China Scholarship Council
- Fuzhou University
- Jingdezhen Ceramic University
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- United States Department of Energy
- University of KwaZulu-Natal
- University of New Mexico