Direct CO2 hydrogenation to light olefins by suppressing CO by-product formation

Abstract We evaluate the direct CO2 conversion to light olefins reaction via a hybrid catalyst of In2O3/ZrO2 metallic oxide and zeolite SAPO34 components. On this catalyst, it can realize producing high light olefins selectivity of 77.59% via a direct tandem catalysis process, that is, the formed methanol on the oxygen vacancies surface of In2O3/ZrO2 in the first step will continue passing through the SAPO34 zeolite channel, where it is changed into light olefins simultaneously. Even there are many studies focused on this tandem catalysis reaction via bi-functional catalyst in recent years, however, to reduce the poisonous byproduct CO is still in a big challenge. In this reaction, large amounts of poisonous CO will be easily formed from reverse water gas shift reaction. Therefore, in our research, by optimizing the reaction, the catalyst can suppress the undesirable CO formation obviously. It shows good potential leading to scale-up cause of the outstanding reaction performance and its friendly-environment properties.