Mesostructured Materials from Rice Husk Employed As Ni-Based Catalysts for the CO2 Utilization.

SALAZAR HOYOS, LUIS A.; CORNAGLIA, LAURA M.; BUSILACCHIO, VALENTINA; PAVIOTTI, M. ANELEY; FAROLDI, BETINA MARÍA CECILIA

San Diego, California

Congreso; 17th International Congress on Catalysis; 2020

International Association of Catalysis Societies

Global energy-related CO2 emissions have covered about 82% of total greenhouse gases and have risen 1.7% to a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2 driven by higher energy demand in 2018. Therefore, the use of CO2 as a raw material has been a focus on the concerns of CO2 climate change mitigation. In this way, the methanation of CO2 is a potential technology to synthesize a feasible chemical energy carrier from this gas. Ni will be among the most attractive active phases due to its good cost-efficiency ratio. Nevertheless, Ni-based catalysis tends to enhance the reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction, resulting in deactivation due to metal sintering and carbon deposition. High surface area supports are desirable to obtain well-dispersed catalysts with high activity [1]. Recently, meso-structured materials, as MCM-41 and cellular silica foams (MCF), have been considered among the promising materials to address these challenges [2]. In concordance, a decrease in the Ni particle size with an enhance dispersion as well as high Ni-support interactions have been reported [2]. In this work, Ni-based catalysts supported on MCM and MCF mesoporous materials were used in the reaction of CO2 methanation. The supports were synthesized using rice husk ashes (RHA) as a silica precursor, which is an undesirable agricultural residue with the high silicon content.