Facilitating the dry reforming of methane with interfacial synergistic catalysis in an Ir@CeO2−x catalyst.

The dry reforming of methane provides an attractive route to convert greenhouse gases (CH₄ and CO₂) into valuable syngas, so as to resolve the carbon cycle and environmental issues. However, the development of high-performance catalysts remains a huge challenge. Herein, we report a 0.6% Ir/CeO_2−x catalyst with a metal-support interface structure which exhibits high CH₄ (~72%) and CO₂ (~82%) conversion and a CH₄ reaction rate of ~973 μmol_CH4 g_cat⁻¹ s⁻¹ which is stable over 100 h at 700 °C. The performance of the catalyst is close to the state-of-the-art in this area of research. A combination of in situ spectroscopic characterization and theoretical calculations highlight the importance of the interfacial structure as an intrinsic active center to facilitate the CH₄ dissociation (the rate-determining step) and the CH₂* oxidation to CH₂O* without coke formation, which accounts for the long-term stability. The catalyst in this work has a potential application prospect in the field of high-value utilization of carbon resources. Dry reforming of methane is an attractive route to convert greenhouse gases into valuable syngas. Here, the authors demonstrate design strategy to prepare efficient catalysts towards activation of both C–H and C = O bonds and provide atomic-level insights into interfacial synergistic catalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]