Well-Defined and Selectivity Tailored CO2 Conversion Catalyst Materials

Reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere has been a frequently discussed topic recently. It would be beneficial if these emittants could be used as a feedstock to produce a something useful, such as fuels. The research in this project contributes to this vision by exploring catalyst formulations that can efficiently undergo hydrogenation to methanol with a pure CO2 feed. Current industrial catalysts for methanol synthesis utilizing a syngas mixture feed of CO/H2/CO2 yield low methanol selectivities with pure CO2. Furthermore, they are prone to deactivation over time due to sintering by water formed in the reaction. Thus, novel catalysts that can improve such bottlenecks are necessary. Catalysts will first be made using different synthesis techniques. Once synthesized, their structure and morphology will be characterized. Kinetic testing will then be performed on the catalysts to link their structure with performance. Post-reaction characterization will also be conducted to study how the catalyst changes in time. Thus, experiments conducted within this project aims to truly investigate how and why high methanol selectivity can be obtained.