In Situ Characterization of Cu/CeO2 Nanocatalysts for CO2 Hydrogenation: Morphological Effects of Nanostructured Ceria on the Catalytic Activity

By Lili Lin, S. Yao, Zongyuan Liu, Feng Zhang, Na Li, Dimitriy Vovchok, A. Martínez-Arias, Rafael Castañeda, Jin-Wei Lin, S. Senanayake and 3 more. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2018

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A combination of time-resolved X-ray diffraction (TR-XRD), ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS), and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy was used to carry out in situ characterization of Cu/CeO2 nanocatalysts during the hydrogenation of CO2. Morphological effects of the ceria supports on the catalytic performances were investigated by examining the behavior of copper/ceria nanorods (NR) and nanospheres. At atmospheric pressures, the hydrogenation of CO2 on the copper/ceria catalysts produced mainly CO through the reverse water–gas shift (RWGS) reaction and a negligible amount of methanol. The Cu/CeO2-NR catalyst displayed the higher activity, which demonstrates that the RWGS is a structure-sensitive reaction. In situ TR-XRD and AP-XPS characterization showed significant changes in the chemical state of the catalysts under reaction conditions, with the copper being fully reduced and a partial Ce4+ → Ce3+ transformation occurring. A more effective CO2 dissociati...

Subfields: Catalysis, Materials Chemistry, Process Chemistry and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/324dee84d7e254bdf70da18c518f5bf3a2e36760