Development of one-pot Cu/cellulose derived carbon catalysts for RWGS reaction

• Catalysts with high metallic content and high metal dispersion are obtained by one-pot biomorphic mineralization. • Cu-based catalysts supported on cellulose-derived carbon were active and stable for the RWGS reaction. • Cu-Ce/CDC shows a CO 2 conversion of 50% at 500 °C with a great stability for almost 80 h. • Direct relationship was found between the catalysts' redox properties and the CO 2 conversion values. A series of Cu-based catalysts promoted with Fe, Ce and Al supported on cellulose derived carbon (CDC) was prepared by biomorphic mineralization technique for the RWGS reaction. The excellent Cu dispersions (7 nm at ca. 30 wt% Cu) along with the resilience toward metal sintering attained in the entire catalysts series highlight one-pot decomposition of cellulose under reducing atmosphere as an excellent synthesis method which enable obtaining well-dispersed Cu nanoparticles. The influence of incorporating a second metal oxide over biomorphic mineralized Cu systems was also investigated. With the Cu-Ce system exhibiting the best catalyst performance of the catalysts’ series, the enhanced catalyst performances were majorly ascribed to the catalysts redox properties. The lineal relationships stablished between oxygen exchange capacity and CO 2 conversion rates remarks the employed sequential H 2 /CO 2 cycles as an effective methodology for screening the catalytic performance of Cu catalysts for RWGS reaction.