One-Pot Synthesis of Supported, Nanocrystalline Nickel Manganese Oxide for Dry Reforming of Methane

Silica supported nanoparticles of nickel manganese oxide, Ni0.2Mn0.8O, were prepared in a one-pot approach, combining co-precipitation and sot-gel chemistry. This approach enables the preparation of small ternary oxide crystallites evenly dispersed on porous silica. The resulting materials were used as catalyst for dry reforming of methane (DRM), and show a much higher activity as the reference bulk material prepared from conventional co-precipitation. Notably, the catalyst shows a remarkable activity even at low temperatures for DRM, thus nearly reaching thermodynamic equilibrium at 500 degrees C.