Highly Selective Synthesis of Ethanol via CO2 Hydrogenation over CoMoCx Catalysts

Abstract Hydrogenation of CO 2 to ethanol is one of the promising and emerging routes for the transformation of CO 2 into value‐added chemicals. In the present work, series of CoMoCx catalysts were prepared by using ionic liquids as all‐in‐one precursors and adjusted the proportional and electronic properties of CoMoC x catalysts by modifying carburization temperature, the efficiency of CO 2 to ethanol hydrogenation was optimized. Under the optimal reaction conditions (180 °C and 2 MPa), the selectivity of ethanol reached 97.4 %, and the yield of ethanol arrived at 0.528 mmolg cat. −1 h −1 . In situ DRIFTS results revealed that a nucleophilic attack on the carbon of CH 3 O* by a formyl to form ethanol.