Recent work by Tsang and co-workers addresses important topics in environmental science and heterogeneous catalysis, that is, CO2 utilization and the economic viability of doing so, methanol synthesis, and metal-support interactions. The experimental study carried out by Tsang and co-workers was based on an innovative approach using catalytic materials made up of a physical mixture of two model components each having a controlled morphology. The components were copper and ZnO nanoparticles. While the use of nanoparticles with well-defined size and morphology has been documented over the past years, the utilization of a multi-component model nanocatalyst powder in a conventional flow reactor is far less common, if not unique. (Note: of course, studies in surface science have offered a vast number of structurally well-defined multi-component nanostructures, yet those rarely allowed catalytic activity to be measured under realistic conditions.) The investigation by Tsang and co-workers focused on the preparation of Cu/ZnO-based catalysts for the synthesis of methanol using a CO2/H2 feed Eq. (1).
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