A review on the development of catalysts and technologies of CO₂ hydrogenation to produce methanol

Abstract

The heterogeneous catalysis of CO₂ and H₂ to CH₃OH is a crucial technology for mitigating CO₂ emissions and its promising application prospects have been driving extensive research. In this review, a wide variety of catalysts including copper, precious metal, typical metal oxides, and common metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are systematically summarized. The corresponding reaction mechanisms are described. The status and prospect of industrial development in this field are discussed. Although the industrial scale of copper-based catalysts has been realized, the single-pass conversion rate is low and they are easy to deactivate. Intensive work is devoted to solving these problems by developing new catalysts. The excellent stability of more than 3000 hours and excellent low-temperature performances make MoS₂ a promising catalyst. Much understanding has been obtained in various catalysts, though the mechanisms are ambiguous and molecular insights are still desperately needed. In the future, developing new efficient catalysts under low temperature with high stability is still the main concern in CO₂ conversion system.

Keywords:

• Catalysis
• Catalyst
• CH3OH
• CO₂
• heterogeneous
• reaction

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank The NingXia University and Qingdao University of Science and Technology for availing of the experimental facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U20A20124) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22002008); the key research and development program of Ningxia province of China (2018BCE01002); the natural science foundation project of Ningxia (2022AAC01001).