The selective hydrogenation of CO2 to value-added chemicals is attractive but still challenged by the high-performance catalyst. In this work, we report that gallium nitride (GaN) catalyzes the direct hydrogenation of CO2 to dimethyl ether (DME) with a CO-free selectivity of about 80%. The activity of GaN for the hydrogenation of CO2 is much higher than that for the hydrogenation of CO although the product distribution is very similar. The steady-state and transient experimental results, spectroscopic studies, and density functional theory calculations rigorously reveal that DME is produced as the primary product via the methyl and formate intermediates, which are formed over different planes of GaN with similar activation energies. This essentially differs from the traditional DME synthesis via the methanol intermediate over a hybrid catalyst. The present work offers a different catalyst capable of the direct hydrogenation of CO2 to DME and thus enriches the chemistry for CO2 transformations.

The size effects of metal catalysts have been widely investigated to optimize their catalytic activity and selectivity. However, the size-controllable synthesis of uniform supported metal nanoparticles without surfactants and/or additives remains a great challenge. Herein, we developed a green, surfactant-free, and universal strategy to tailor the sizes of uniform Pd nanoparticles on metal oxides by an electroless chemical deposition method via defect engineering of supports. The nucleation and growth mechanism suggest a strong electrostatic interaction between the Pd precursor and low-defective CeO2 and a weak reducing capacity for low-defective CeO2, resulting in small Pd nanoparticles. Conversely, large Pd nanoparticles were formed on a highly defective CeO2 surface. Combined with various ex situ and in situ characterizations, a higher intrinsic activity of Pd for the CO2-to-CO hydrogenation was found on large Pd nanoparticles with higher electron density owing to their stronger H2 dissociation ability and H-spillover effects, as well as the larger number of oxygen vacancies generated in situ for CO2 activation under hydrogenation conditions.

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We propose a new strategy to make an active and stable Ni-based catalyst which can be operated in a wide range of reaction temperatures. The ordered mesoporous alumina (OMA) with confined Ni in the pore wall (Ni-OMA) was prepared via the one-pot evaporation induced self-assembly method. By using the incipient impregnation method, different amounts of free Ni were loaded over Ni-OMA (Ni/Ni-OMA) at a fixed total NiO content of 15 wt%. Characterization results confirmed the formation of wellstructured Ni-OMA, and the ordered structure was still well preserved even after impregnating NiO at a content of as high as 12 wt%. The catalysts were evaluated for the CO methanation as a model reaction under varied conditions. Importantly, the activity and stability of Ni/Ni-OMA for the titled reaction were significantly regulated by simply changing the ratio of the confined to free Ni. Over the optimum catalyst of NiO (2 wt%)/NiO (13 wt%)-OMA, the high activity at a temperature of as low as 300 °C was achieved with the space-time yield of methane over 7.6 g g cat −1 h −1 while a long-term stability for a time-onstream of 400 h was confirmed without an observable deactivation under the conditions of 600 °C and an extremely high gas hourly space velocity of 120,0 0 0 mL g −1 h −1 . The results were well explained as the integrated merits of the free Ni for a high dispersion and the confined Ni in OMA for the anti-sintering property.