Performance of Cu-Mn-Zn/ZrO2 catalysts for methanol synthesis from CO2 hydrogenation: The effect of Zn content

A series of Cu-Mn-Zn/ZrO2 catalysts with different Zn contents were prepared by sol-gel method and characterized by XRD, BET, TPR, N2O-adsorption, XPS, TPD and in-situ DRIFTS. It was found that by increasing a certain amount of Zn, the catalytic activity for CO2 hydrogenation increased. Among all samples, Cu3MnZn0.5Zr0.5 (CMZZ-0.5) possessed the best CO2 conversion (6.5%) and methanol selectivity (73.7%) at 250 °C and 5 MPa. Characterization results showed that Zn entered the Cu1.5Mn1.5O4 spinel structure, forming ZnOx and thus more surface OH groups. This increased the content of Cu0 and Cuα, which improved the activation of H2 and CO2. The pathway of CO2 to methanol was also clarified through in-situ DRIFTS.