Electronic Promotion of Methanol Synthesis over Cu-Loaded ZnO-Based Catalysts

Hironobu Sugiyama; Nobuhiro Nakamura; Satoru Watanabe; Junghwan Kim; Masaaki Kitano; Hideo Hosono

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03427

Electronic Promotion of Methanol Synthesis over Cu-Loaded ZnO-Based Catalysts

J Phys Chem Lett. 2023 Feb 9;14(5):1259-1264. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03427. Epub 2023 Jan 31.

Authors

Hironobu Sugiyama¹, Nobuhiro Nakamura^{1

2}, Satoru Watanabe², Junghwan Kim¹, Masaaki Kitano^{1

3}, Hideo Hosono^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ MDX Research Center for Element Strategy, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama226-8503, Japan.
² Materials Integration Laboratories, AGC Inc., Yokohama, Kanagawa230-0045, Japan.
³ Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR), Tohoku University, Sendai980-8577, Japan.
⁴ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science, Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki305-0044, Japan.

PMID: 36719321
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03427

Abstract

Methanol, a raw material for C1 chemistry, is industrially produced under harsh conditions using Cu/ZnO-based catalysts. The synthesis of methanol under mild conditions is a challenging subject using an improved catalyst. Here, Zn_1-xSi_xO (ZSO) nanoparticles were synthesized by a thermal plasma method, and their work function and carrier concentration could be tuned by the Zn:Si ratio. The electrically conductive ZSO nanoparticles with a low work function enhanced the donation of electrons to loaded Cu and significantly promoted hydrogenation of CO to methanol, whereas insulating ZSO nanoparticles with a similar low work function did not. These results reveal that efficient electronic promotion by the transfer of electrons from a support to loaded Cu plays a key role in low-temperature methanol synthesis.