Catalytic combustion of methane by perovskite-type oxide nanoparticles as pollution prevention strategy

The transition from the existing brown economy towards the desired green economy drives the research efforts to the development of advanced technologies promoting the efficient utilization of energy sources. Catalysis science offers to combustion technology significant opportunity to increase the fuel efficiency by lowering the internal temperature gradients and reduce the environmental impact by lowering local peak temperature and, consequently, thermodynamically inhibiting the nitrogen oxides formation. Alternative catalytic materials are transition metals oxide, including complex oxides with perovskite crystalline structure. The aim of this work is to synthetize lanthanum ferrite perovskites with lanthanum ions partially substituted by strontium ions in order to study the substitution effects on structural properties and redox activity of the original oxide. Lanthanum ferrite oxides partially substituted with different Strontium amount were synthesized by solution combustion method. The perovskite nanopowders obtained were characterized by XRD, SEM, TPR analyses for defining crystalline structure, morphology and redox properties. Finally, the catalytic activity for methane combustion was tested. The most performing catalysts was La0.6Sr0.4FeO3 having the highest oxygen vacancy concentration as revealed by TPR analysis.