Methanation of syngas is one of the main processes of coal to synthetic natural gas.Compared with the traditional nickel based catalyst

molybdenum based sulfur-resistant catalyst for methanation has certain technical and cost advantages since it can avoid fine desulfurization process and water gas shift reaction.Unfortunately

the activity of molybdenum based catalyst is lower than Ni-based catalyst

especially the low temperature activity and high temperature stability.In this paper

the methanation performance of Mo-based catalyst prepared by different methods was investigated in a continuous-flow

fixed-bed reactor.The catalyst prepared by solution combustion with a gas hourly space velocity of 5000 h-1 and pressure of 3 MPa exhibited the highest activity with CO conversion of 26% and 79% at 300℃ and 400℃

respectively.The prepared catalysts were characterized by N2-physisorption

Transmission Electron Microscope(TEM)

X-ray diffraction(XRD) and Raman Spectroscopy(RS).The catalyst prepared by solution combustion method showed a higher dispersion of Mo species on the surface of ZrO2 support

owing to its larger surface area and smaller ZrO2 particle size.In contrary

the large Mo species were formed on the catalysts prepared by co-precipitation and impregnation methods

which was considered as one of the factors resulting in their lower methanation activity.