Effect of Precipitated Precursor on the Catalytic Performance of Mesoporous Carbon Supported CuO-ZnO Catalysts.

As part of concepts for chemical energy storage of excess chemical energy produced from renewable sources, we investigated the performance of CuO/ZnO catalysts supported on mesoporous carbon to convert CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol. In this work, mesoporous carbon was used as the catalyst support for CuO-ZnO catalysts. Four catalysts with different precipitated precursors were synthesized and analyzed by N₂-physisorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TG-DTG), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that catalyst CZ-in situ had the highest turnover frequency (TOF) (2.8 × 10⁻³ s⁻¹) and methanol production rate (0.8 mmol g⁻¹·h⁻¹). The catalysts for co-precipitation of copper and zinc on carbon precursors are more active. Cu/ZnO domains that are accessible to the reactant gas are another reason for the catalysts being active. The Cu-ZnO interface is crucial to methanol catalyst activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]