Free-standing NiO–MgO nanosheets in-situ controllably composited on Ni-foam as monolithic catalyst for catalytic oxy-methane reforming

Abstract Free-standing NiO–MgO composite nanosheet catalysts to be used for catalytic oxy-methane reforming (COMR) have been developed by in-situ growing onto the Ni-foam struts under hydrothermal condition followed by calcination treatment. Among them, the NiO–MgO/Ni-foam consisting of 1.0% MgO, 18.7% NiO and nickel-foam-strut balance is the best structured catalyst engineered from nano- to macro-scale, being capable of converting 82.9% CH 4 into syngas at selectivity of 94.7% to H 2 and of 89.9% to CO for a feed of CH 4 /O 2 =2/1 (vol/vol), at 700 °C and a high gas hourly space velocity of 100 L g −1  h −1 . Nevertheless, improvement of their carbon resistance and textural stability is particularly desirable.