New black indium oxide-tandem photothermal CO2-H2 methanol selective catalyst

Zeshu Zhang; Chengliang Mao; Débora Motta Meira; Paul N Duchesne; Athanasios A Tountas; Zhao Li; Chenyue Qiu; Sanli Tang; Rui Song; Xue Ding; Junchuan Sun; Jiangfan Yu; Jane Y Howe; Wenguang Tu; Lu Wang; Geoffrey A Ozin

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29222-7

New black indium oxide-tandem photothermal CO₂-H₂ methanol selective catalyst

Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 21;13(1):1512. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29222-7.

Authors

Zeshu Zhang¹, Chengliang Mao^{2

3}, Débora Motta Meira^{4

5}, Paul N Duchesne⁶, Athanasios A Tountas⁷, Zhao Li⁷, Chenyue Qiu⁸, Sanli Tang⁷, Rui Song⁷, Xue Ding¹, Junchuan Sun¹, Jiangfan Yu¹, Jane Y Howe^{8

9}, Wenguang Tu¹, Lu Wang¹⁰, Geoffrey A Ozin¹¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518172, Shenzhen, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
² Solar Fuels Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3H6, Canada. chengliang.mao@mail.utoronto.ca.
³ Key Laboratory of Pesticide & Chemical Biology of Ministry of Education, Institute of Environmental & Applied Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, People's Republic of China. chengliang.mao@mail.utoronto.ca.
⁴ CLS@APS, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA.
⁵ Canadian Light Source Inc., 44 Innovation Boulevard, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 2V3, Canada.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, 90 Bader Lane, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada.
⁷ Solar Fuels Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3H6, Canada.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, 184 College Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3E4, Canada.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College St, Toronto, ON, M5S 3E5, Canada.
¹⁰ School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518172, Shenzhen, Guangdong, People's Republic of China. lwang@cuhk.edu.cn.
¹¹ Solar Fuels Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3H6, Canada. g.ozin@utoronto.ca.

Abstract

It has long been known that the thermal catalyst Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃(CZA) can enable remarkable catalytic performance towards CO₂ hydrogenation for the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) and methanol synthesis reactions. However, owing to the direct competition between these reactions, high pressure and high hydrogen concentration (≥75%) are required to shift the thermodynamic equilibrium towards methanol synthesis. Herein, a new black indium oxide with photothermal catalytic activity is successfully prepared, and it facilitates a tandem synthesis of methanol at a low hydrogen concentration (50%) and ambient pressure by directly using by-product CO as feedstock. The methanol selectivities achieve 33.24% and 49.23% at low and high hydrogen concentrations, respectively.