Dry Reforming Using Modified Metal Carbides

Dry Reforming using Modified Metal Carbides

Raj Thakur, Justin Smith, Carlos A. Carrero^*

† Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36830, United States

* cac0134@auburn.edu

Our research focusses on the conversion of methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) to syngas, so-called dry reforming of methane (DRM). Despite of the challenges associated to the high endothermicity of this reaction, DRM produces H₂ and CO in a 1:1 ratio which is optimal to produce, for instance, liquids via the Fischer-Tropsch process.

In this study, prior performing the dry reforming reaction, a series of catalysts comprised of bulk and supported vanadium oxide were converted to vanadium carbide. We developed an approach to convert the metal oxide precursors in the carbide form by exploring various conditions and precursors to then correlate the selected parameters with the structural and catalytic properties of the final carbide materials. We characterize the materials, prior, during, and after the carburization via various ex situ, in situ, and operando techniques, such as Raman spectroscopy, XRD, XPS, and SEM. Our preliminary kinetic studies show that by tuning the conditions in the carburization process, the catalytic properties of the resulted vanadium carbide changes. These differences are more evident in terms of the stability of the catalysts, or in other words, in terms of the type and amount of carbon produced during the reaction. We aim to maximize the activity, selectivity in terms of CO/H₂ ratio, and stability towards syngas of vanadium carbide catalysts.