Optimizing interfacial interaction between Cu and metal oxides boosts methanol yield in CO2 hydrogenation

Abstract Thermocatalytic conversion of redundant CO2 to useful methanol is an attractive route to address both energy and environmental crises simultaneously. However, existing copper/oxide catalysts widely used in these thermocatalytic processes still suffer from low methanol yield under mild reaction conditions. In this work, we design inverse oxide/Cu catalysts to achieve superior thermal catalytic performance for CO2 hydrogenation. The optimized ZnO/Cu-1.0 catalyst exhibits maximum CH3OH selectivity of 83.4% and space-time yield (STY) of 170.9 gCH3OH·kgcat−1·h− 1 in CO2 hydrogenation at 210°C, nearly 2-fold higher STY than the previous optimal inverse ZnO/Cu catalysts (89.6 gCH3OH·kgcat−1·h− 1 at 250°C). Importantly, ZnO/Cu-1.0 catalyst displayed not only a satisfactory catalytic stability but also a superior CH3OH STY with a time-on-stream of 24 h. Such inverse configuration of catalysts will pave the way for new strategies to design high-performance thermocatalytic catalysts and promote their commercialization.