CO2 Hydrogenation to Methanol over a Pt-Loaded Molybdenum Suboxide Nanosheet with Abundant Surface Oxygen Vacancies

Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide (CO2) using CO2-free hydrogen (H2) to produce methanol (CH3OH) is a promising reaction that can alleviate both carbon emissions and the dependence on fossil fuels. Nonstoichiometric molybdenum suboxide coupled with Pt nanoparticles (NPs) acts as a promising catalyst for this reaction, in which surface oxygen vacancies (VO) and the redox ability of Mo in molybdenum suboxide are the keys to transforming CO2 into the CO intermediate and further to afford CH3OH. In this study, a series of molybdenum oxides with different morphologies, including bulk, nanosheet, nanobelt, and rod morphologies, are used as catalysts, and the effects of particle morphologies on the catalytic performance toward CO2 hydrogenation are examined. A Pt-loaded molybdenum suboxide nanosheet (Pt/HxMoO3–y(Sheet)) with a high specific surface area affords 1.35 times greater CO2 conversion and CH3OH yield in liquid-phase CO2 hydrogenation compared with the corresponding bulk analog under relatively mild reaction conditions (total 4.0 MPa, 200 °C). Experiments and comprehensive analyses, including X-ray diffraction and in situ X-ray absorption fine structure studies, reveal that the enhanced activity of Pt/HxMoO3–y(Sheet) is attributable to a high concentration of surface-exposed VO sites, which are introduced in the (010) plane during the H2 reduction due to the high surface-to-volume ratio of the nanosheet-structured MoO3. In addition, the nanosheet-structured catalyst exhibits better reusability because of its antiaggregation behavior for Pt NPs compared with the conventional bulk analog.