was carried out with the freshly prepared catalyst at different temperatures ranging 450 800 u00b0 c the gas hourly space velocity ghsv was varied between 5000 to 500000 ml g u2212 1 h u2212 1 with a molar ratio of o 2 ch 4 he of 1 2 2 to 1 2 7 the reaction products were analyzed using an online gas chromatography agilent 7890a fitted with a tcd detector using two different columns molecular sieves for analyzing h 2 and porapack q for analyzing ch 4 co 2 and co the following examples are given by way of illustration of working of the invention in actual practice and should not be constructed to limit the scope of the present invention in any way 19 gm of cerium nitrate hexahydrate and 30 ml ethanol was taken in a beaker dissolve the salt by stirring the ph of the solution was maintained to 8 using 2 nh 3 the solution was continued stirring at room temperature 30 u00b0 c for 1 hr the temperature was raised to 80 u00b0 c and continued stirring for 3 hrs the temperature was then raised to 100 u00b0 c and evaporated to dryness for 17 hrs the.