Exploiting Properties of MXenes to Improve Performance of Dry Reforming Catalysts

The development of efficient catalysts for dry reforming of methane (DRM) is critical for the sustainable production of syngas, an essential precursor for many industrial processes. DRM is known to have a high energy penalty due to the intrinsic chemical stability of the CO₂ molecule. The mechanism suggests that CO₂ is activated at the metal-support interphase while methane is activated on the surface of the active metals. Therefore, the reaction can be significantly improved by designing new catalysts that maximize the metal-support interactions (MSI) and consequently facilitate CO₂ activation. In this work, MXene (Ti₃C₂T_x) is used as support for Ni catalysts to address their low deactivation resistance during DRM. Wet impregnation was used to synthesize MXene-supported Ni catalysts (Ni/Ti₃C₂T_x) and a reference catalyst (γ-Al₂O₃-supported Ni) with 10 wt% loadings. The morphology and composition of the catalysts and the tailored surface functional groups of the MXenes obtained from electron microscopic and spectroscopic techniques have been correlated with their catalytic activity during dry reforming at atmospheric pressure. Simulations using Aspen Plus have been used to compare the experimental conversion with the thermodynamic benchmark by the Gibbs free energy minimization method.