Co-Fe Nanoparticles Wrapped on N-Doped Graphitic Carbons as Highly Selective CO2 Methanation Catalysts

Bogdan Jurca; Lu Peng; Ana Primo; Alvaro Gordillo; Vasile I Parvulescu; Hermenegildo García

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c05542

Co-Fe Nanoparticles Wrapped on N-Doped Graphitic Carbons as Highly Selective CO₂ Methanation Catalysts

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Aug 11;13(31):36976-36981. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c05542. Epub 2021 Jul 30.

Authors

Bogdan Jurca¹, Lu Peng², Ana Primo², Alvaro Gordillo³, Vasile I Parvulescu¹, Hermenegildo García²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry and Catalysis, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest, Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta 4-12, Bucharest 030016, Romania.
² Instituto Universitario de Tecnología Química, Universitat Politècnica de València-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avenida de los Naranjos s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain.
³ BASF SE, 67056 Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany.

Abstract

Pyrolysis of chitosan containing various loadings of Co and Fe renders Co-Fe alloy nanoparticles supported on N-doped graphitic carbon. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images show that the surface of Co-Fe NPs is partially covered by three or four graphene layers. These Co-Fe@(N)C samples catalyze the Sabatier CO₂ hydrogenation, increasing the activity and CH₄ selectivity with the reaction temperature in the range of 300-500 °C. Under optimal conditions, a CH₄ selectivity of 91% at an 87% CO₂ conversion was reached at 500 °C and a space velocity of 75 h^-1 under 10 bar. The Co-Fe alloy nanoparticles supported on N-doped graphitic carbon are remarkably stable and behave differently as an analogous Co-Fe catalyst supported on TiO₂.

Keywords: CO2 utilization; Co−Fe alloy nanoparticles as catalysts; Co−Fe wrapped on N-doped graphene; Sabatier reaction; heterogeneous catalysis.