A highly efficient Li–Cu/MoOxcatalyst constructed by a precursor dispersion and alkali metal-promotion stepwise regulation strategy for the CO2hydrogenation to methanol reactionElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d3cy01204b

The hydrogenation of CO2enables the production of high-value fuels and chemicals, contributing to a sustainable and environment-friendly energy transition. Currently, for the CO2hydrogenation to methanol reaction, either increasing the CO2conversion or improving the methanol selectivity while maintaining high CO2conversion is challenging. Herein, a new catalyst loaded with Cu nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed on amorphous MoOxwith Li2CO3as a promoter (denoted as Li–Cu/MoOx) was constructed viaan in situdispersion and alkali metal-promotion stepwise regulation strategy. At 260 °C and 5 MPa, the as-designed catalyst exhibited a satisfactory catalytic performance with a CO2conversion of 13.4% and a methanol selectivity of 88.8%. The methanol selectivity of the Li–Cu/MoOxcatalyst is higher than that of all the Cu-based catalysts reported in the literature to date under the conditions of CO2conversion >10% and reaction pressure <8 MPa in a fixed-bed reactor. Furthermore, the Li–Cu/MoOxcatalyst showed an excellent thermal stability. It was found that the in situdispersion step enabled a high dispersion of Cu NPs and the production of the amorphous MoOxsupport, resulting in the formation of more Cu–support interfaces, which increased the number of active sites in the catalyst. The high methanol selectivity was attributed to an alkali metal-promotion step, which increased the Mo4+content in MoOx, leading to a change in the types of active sites. In addition, the strong metal–support interaction (SMSI) in the catalyst was responsible for the high thermal stability. This strategy also has potential for designing other highly efficient catalysts.