A breakthrough in CO2 hydrogenation to produce light olefins.

What is it about?

The reaction of CO2 hydrogenation to light olefins provides a promising way for global warming mitigation and energy transition. The rapid reaction rate accompanied by high selectivity toward the target product is imperative to achieve an economically viable yield for the practical application. This requires an effective catalyst, which can powerfully accelerate this reaction. Here, we designed a multifunctional ZnFeAlO4 + SAPO-34 catalyst, which provided three active sites of tetrahedral Fe sites, octahedral Zn sites, and Brønsted acid sites. As such, the high CO2 conversion (~42%) and high light olefins selectivity (~83%) are simultaneously achieved.

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Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Catalyst is the core of the chemical industry, which plays a vital role in solving the major problems of human society such as environment and energy. How to design the active sites to obtain an effective catalyst is pursuit. A multifunctional ZnFeAlO4 + SAPO-34 composite catalyst equipped with three types of active sites was designed, which allows to break the trade-off between CO2 conversion and light olefins selectivity. More importantly, this work provides insights into the rationally designing and assembling active sites to simultaneously obtain the desired catalytic activity and selectivity.

Perspectives