A highly efficient Cu/ZnOx/ZrO2 catalyst for selective CO2 hydrogenation to methanol

The ternary Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst is usually employed for producing methanol from syngas (CO/CO2/H2) or from CO2 hydrogenation in industry. However, this catalyst often suffers from the aggregation of Cu nanoparticles and the phase separation of Cu and ZnO. In this work, a highly efficient and stable catalyst (Cu/ZnOx/ZrO2) for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol is prepared via co-precipitation method with UiO-66 as structural template. Cu/Zn is effectively combined and encapsulated in the channels of UiO-66, which avoids the aggregation of metal particles. The ZrO2 support derived from UiO-66 enhances the interaction between the support and Cu/Zn, and thus improves the catalytic performance significantly. This catalyst shows a high space–time yield of 216.7 g(MeOH)·kg(cat)−1·h−1 at 260 °C, 4 MPa and GHSV = 12000 h−1. Furthermore, the catalyst shows good stability over a period of 50 h on stream. The performance of Cu/ZnOx/ZrO2 is much better than that of commercial catalysts and most of catalysts previously reported.