Figure 1 presents the OCM reaction performance of Mg, Ca, Sr and Ba doped La
2O
3 catalysts within the temperature range of 550−800 °C. The undoped La
2O
3 catalyst reaches its optimal performance at 750 °C, with CH
4 and O
2 conversions of 30.4% and 95.1%, respectively and a C
2+ selectivity of 48.3%. For alkaline earth metal Mg, Ca, Sr and Ba doped La
2O
3 catalysts, a clear trend was observed: the light-off temperature gradually increased with the ionic radius of the dopant. At 600 °C, the order of activity for both O
2 and CH
4 conversion was LaMg
0.05 > LaCa
0.05 > LaSr
0.05 > LaBa
0.05. This sequence indicates that Mg doping significantly enhances the O
2 activation capability of La
2O
3, leading to improved CH
4 conversion. Conversely, the C
2+ selectivity showed an opposite trend, increasing with the size of the dopant cation. LaBa
0.05 exhibited the highest C
2+ selectivity, which was 6.7% higher than that of undoped La
2O
3 catalyst at 750 °C. However, this gain in selectivity came at the cost of lower activity at 700 °C, LaBa
0.05 showed conversions of only 20.2% for CH
4 and 59.0% for O
2. These results indicate that while Ba doping promotes C
2+ formation, it concurrently weakens the catalyst's oxygen activation capacity, necessitating higher operating temperatures to achieve a competitive C
2+ yield. Motivated by the complementary properties of Mg-doped La
2O
3 (strong O
2 activation) and Ba-doped La
2O
3 (high C
2+ selectivity), this study investigates the synergistic integration of both dopants into La
2O
3, aiming to concurrently achieve high CH
4 conversion and C
2+ selectivity under relatively mild reaction conditions. As illustrated in
Figure 2, the catalytic properties showed a clear dependence on the Mg/Ba molar ratio. Specifically, with an increasing Mg/Ba molar ratio, the C
2+ selectivity progressively increased, while the activation capability for both O
2 and CH
4 concurrently decreased. The catalyst with an equimolar Mg/Ba ratio (LaMg
0.025Ba
0.025) demonstrated balanced and superior performance at 700 °C, achieving a CH
4 conversion of 29.5% and a C
2+ selectivity of 54.5%. This represents a 6% enhancement in C
2+ selectivity compared to the solely Mg-doped counterpart (LaMg
0.05) and an 11% improvement in CH
4 conversion relative to the solely Ba-doped catalyst (LaBa
0.05) at the same temperature. Therefore, the synergistic co-doping of Mg and Ba into La
2O
3 successfully reconciled the trade-off between activity and selectivity at 700 °C, yielding a substantially higher C
2+ yield. In addition, the long-term stability of the optimal LaMg
0.025Ba
0.025 catalyst was evaluated under industrially relevant, high-severity conditions (GHSV = 80000 mL/(g·h)). As shown in
Figure 3(a), the catalyst maintained exceptionally stable CH
4 conversion and C
2+ selectivity over the 24 h test, showing its robustness, which is crucial for the OCM reaction.