High Performance Methanol Synthesis from CO_2 Hydrogenation over Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 Catalyst Prepared by a Novel Reduction-coprecipitation Method

摘要

The effective hydrogenation of CO_2 to methanol has attracted considerable attention in recent years by providing a promising alternative for greenhouse gas mitigation. The use of the commercial ternary Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalysts for the catalytic synthesis of methanol from CO_2 hydrogenation has gained much attention since CO_2 is currently used as an additive in the synthesis of methanol from syngas (CO/H_2). Nevertheless, the ternary catalyst that is active for CO-rich feedstock is not so active for the CO_2-rich sources. As a result, great efforts have been made to develop new efficient catalyst for methanol synthesis from CO_2/H_2. Here we present a novel and effective method for the significant improvement of performance of a Cu/ZnO/Al_2O_3 catalyst by an aqueous reductive pretreatment of the newly prepared catalyst precursor obtained by conventional carbonate-coprecipitation. The utilization of KBH_4 as reducing agent under mild conditions can offer advantage of easy access to large amount of metastable active species, thus providing new opportunity to regulate the reaction behaviour of the catalyst.