Carbon dioxide reforming of methane in the presence of nickel and platinum catalysts supported on ZrO₂

Carbon dioxide reforming of methane to produce synthesis gas (CO+H₂) is currently attracting a much interest. One of the reasons for this interest is that the reaction consumes CH₄ and CO₂, both of which are greenhouse gases. CO₂ reforming of methane is only a permanent solution to the problem of CO₂ emissions if the synthesis gas generated from the reaction is not used to produce fuels which relatively quickly end up as CO₂ once more as result of combustion. A possible solution to this is to convert the syngas to polymeric materials such as polycarbonates which will have long-term usage. Another advantage of the CO₂/CH₄ reaction is that the syngas has a H₂/CO ratio of 1:1 which is ideal for the manufacture of certain chemicals—for example, oxo-alcohols by the reaction of CO +H₂ plus the corresponding alcohols. Compared with the production of such a syngas mixture from the reaction of steam with coke, in which methane is also formed, the purity of the syngas formed by C q reforming is much better (>99.8%); impurities such as methane give problems during the formation of polycarbonates. The aim of this chapter is to develop catalysts which are capable of catalysing the CO₂/CH₄ reaction under as near as possible to stoichiometric conditions (CO₂/CH₄ = 1).