Highly dispersed mesoporous Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalyst for RWGS reaction

The extensive use of fossil energy leads to the wanton emission of CO2 and serious environmental problems. The resource utilization of CO2 is an effective way to solve this problem. The key of CO2 resource utilization is the design and preparation of high active CO2 hydrogenation catalyst. In this paper, supported Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation and grinding methods, respectively. The physicochemical properties of the prepared Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, CO2-TPD and Quasi in-situ XPS, and the reducibility of the precursors was studied by H2-TPR. The results show that Cu content directly affects the Cu0 species crystallinity and even affects the adsorption and activation of CO2 molecules for the Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalyst. The dispersion of Cu0 species in the prepared Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalysts can be further improved by grinding method. The CO2 reaction rate on the Cu/γ-Al2O3 catalyst prepared by grinding method can be significantly increased to 2.12 × 10−5 mol/gcat/s at 400 °C.