CO2 hydrogenation to methanol over Cu-ZnO-CeO2 catalyst: Reaction structure–activity relationship, optimizing Ce and Zn ratio, and kinetic study

The catalytic conversion of captured CO2 to MeOH is a possible solution to mitigate the rising CO2 emissions and to develop a carbon neutral society. The present study unveiled the effect of incorporating CeO2 to the precursor chemistry of Cu/ZnO catalytic system. The relation between the density of strong basic sites and H2 adsorption sites with catalytic activity is established. At 250 °C, 30 bar and 3000 mLgcat−1h−1, more than 106.7 gMeOH kgcat−1h−1 the MeOH STY is obtained for the CZCe-10 catalyst. Further, the reaction kinetics are performed for the best-screened catalyst, within the temperature 220 °C-310 °C, pressure 10 bar-30 bar, GHSV 1500–7500 mL gcat−1h−1 and H2/CO2 ratio 1:1 to 5:1 range. The literature reported single site and dual site kinetic models are applied to the experimental data, and the dual site reaction mechanism is found to be better based on model correlation’s error variances.