Investigation of dynamic phase transitions of highly active CO2 methanation LaNiO3 perovskite catalysts

Cost efficient catalysts are in great demand for the CO2 hydrogenation into useful chemicals and fuels. Recently we prepared a high surface area LaNiO3 perovskite catalysts with up to 4 times higher activity than conventional Ni-supported on La2O3. Using in-situ NAP-XPS and XRD we demonstrated the transformation of LaNiO3 perovskite structure under reducing pre-treatment. However, XRD is not sensitive to the local electronic structure while NAP-XPS measurements are restricted to few mbar therefore limited by the so-called pressure gap. Therefore, we propose here an operando hard X-rays XAFS/DRIFTS experiment of LaNiO3 perovskite catalysts to unlock the dynamic transformation of the LaNiO3 electronic and geometric structure upon reduction and CO2 hydrogenation reaction conditions. This knowledge will be combined with the valuable IR information on the produced chemical intermediates, with the ultimate goal of describing the CO2 hydrogenation mechanism.