Application research on commercial methanol synthesis catalysts for CO_2 hydrogenation to methanol

The catalysts used in commercial methanol synthesis were studied systematically for the hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol for the first time and their performance was investigated in a fixed-bed reactor.The catalysts were characterized by means of XRD,N2 adsorption-desorption,H2-TPR and ICP.The results indicated that Cu/Zn/Al catalysts exhibited higher activity for CO2 hydrogenation,and CO2 conversion and selectivity to methanol were 22.9% and 64.8% respectively under the condition of reaction temperature 220 ℃ and reaction pressure 3.0 MPa.The activities of the catalysts were mainly related to their component contents,grain sizes,surface areas and pore structures.The higher the contents of CuO/ZnO were,the higher the catalytic activity was.CuO species with appropriate grain sizes might be the effective precursor with catalytic activity,and their reaction rule was consistent with the theory of the HCOO-Cu intermediates.Furthermore,the higher surface area and neat pore structures could improve the activity of the catalyst.