<p>Methane steam reforming (MSR) plays a key role in the production of
syngas and hydrogen from natural gas. The increasing interest in the use of
hydrogen for fuel cell applications demands the development of catalysts with
high activity at reduced operating temperatures. Ni-based catalysts are
promising systems because of their high activity and low cost, but coke
formation generally poses a severe problem. Studies of ambient-pressure X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) indicate that CH<sub>4</sub>/H<sub>2</sub>O
gas mixtures react with Ni/CeO<sub>2</sub>(111) surfaces to form OH, CH<i><sub>x</sub></i>
and CH<i><sub>x</sub></i>O at 300 K. All these species are easy to form and
desorb at temperatures below 700 K when the rate of the MSR process
accelerates. Density functional theory (DFT) modeling of the reaction over
ceria-supported small Ni nanoparticles predicts relatively low activation
barriers between 0.3–0.7 eV for the complete dehydrogenation of methane to
carbon and the barrierless activation of water at interfacial Ni sites. Hydroxyls
resulting from water activation allow CO formation via a COH intermediate with
a barrier of about 0.9 eV, which is much lower than that through a pathway
involving lattice oxygen from ceria. Neither methane nor water activation are
rate-determining steps, and the OH-assisted CO formation through the COH
intermediate constitutes a low-barrier pathway that prevents carbon accumulation.
The interaction between Ni and the ceria support and the low metal loading are
crucial for the reaction to proceed in a coke-free and efficient way. These
results could pave the way for further advances in the design of stable and highly
active Ni-based catalysts for hydrogen production.</p>