(461a) Discovery of Superior Cu-GaOx-HoOy Catalysts for the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol at Atmospheric Pressure
AIChE Annual Meeting
2016
2016 AIChE Annual Meeting
Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division
Catalysis for C1 Chemistry I: CO2 Conversion
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 - 8:30am to 8:48am
Catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide to liquid fuels and basic chemicals using solar-derived hydrogen at or near ambient pressure is a highly desirable goal in heterogeneous catalysis. When realized, this technology will pave the way for a sustainable society together with decentralized power generation. Here we report a novel class of superior holmium (Ho) containing multi-metal oxide Cu catalysts discovered through the application of high-throughput methods. In particular, ternary systems of Cu-GaOx-HoOy > Cu-CeOx-HoOy ~ Cu-LaOx-HoOy supported on γ-Al2O3 exhibited superior methanol activities (10x) with less CO production than previously reported catalysts at 1 atm pressure. Holmium was shown to form highly dispersed 1-3 atom clusters, thus exhibit a dopant effect in promoting CH3OH formation over larger (5-7 nm) Cu and Ga clusters.