State of the art and perspectives in heterogeneous catalysis of CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol

Abstract

The ever-increasing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has resulted in great environmental impacts, the heterogeneous catalysis of CO2 hydrogenation to methanol is of great significance.

A Review on Particle Size Effect in Metal‐Catalyzed Heterogeneous Reactions

“…Heterogeneous Cu catalysts have been mainly applied in C—O bond derived reactions, such as methanol synthesis from CO/CO 2 hydrogenation, [ 165‐169 ] (reverse) water‐gas shift reactions (WGS) [ 170‐171 ] and ester hydrogeantion, [ 172‐173 ] due to their moderate capability for activation of C—O bond and H 2 .…”

“…These inconsistent results are probably due to the difference of structure and composition of the complex binary ZnO/ZrO 2 support formed during the co‐precipatation processes, since metal‐support interfaces have a remarkable influence on the activity of methanol formation. [ 169 ]…”

“…Among all kind of supports, ZnO has been confirmed to be one of the most efficient promoter for enhancing the activity of methanol formation; therein, Cu/ZnO catalysts often exhibited one or even two orders of magnitude higher activity than bare Cu catalysts. [ 165,169,176,178,183 ] Such promotion effect known as “Cu‐Zn” synergy, [ 178,183,255 ] has led to several contradictory mechanistic models, [ 178,256‐260 ] among which Zn species were suggested to be an active component synergistically participating in catalytic process with Cu. [ 178,261‐262 ]…”

Novel Heterogeneous Catalysts for CO2 Hydrogenation to Liquid Fuels

“…Currently, the largest plant, Carbon Recycling International (CRI)’s CO 2 -to-renewable-methanol plant in Iceland, is capable of producing 4000 t/year of methanol by converting about 5500 t/year of CO 2 . 12 However, direct reduction of CO 2 to C 2+ products is still a grand challenge due to the lack of efficient catalysts with high stability, as the activity of C–C coupling is low and the formation of byproduct water can easily deactivate the various catalysts for CO 2 conversion. 2 , 13 − 15 Syngas (CO/H 2 ) and CH 3 OH are the most important C1 platform molecules, and their conversions to value-added products via the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) and methanol to hydrocarbons (MTH) processes, respectively, were extensively applied in industry.…”

“…Therefore, we mainly introduce the work of highly selective conversion of CO 2 to CH 3 OH, as there have been many excellent recent reviews on methanol synthesis via heterogeneous catalysis. 12 , 23 − 27 …”