Efficient hydrogenation of CO2 to formic acid over amorphous NiRuB catalysts

The hydrogenation of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to formic acid (FA) has been considered as a promising approach to utilize CO 2 and realize carbon-neutral energy supply. Development of efficient heterogeneous catalysts is an interesting yet challenging task. In this work, a reliable amorphous NiRu 0.1 B catalyst was presented and displayed a sufficient catalytic activity for the hydrogenation of CO 2 into FA. The amorphous structure of catalysts provided abundant dangling bonds and unsaturated atoms for enhancement of the reactant gas adsorption. Moreover, the electron-donating effect of B element is crucial for creating active electron-rich metal centres, which is proposed to facilitate the formation of the M H for activating CO 2 molecules. Owing to synergistic effect of amorphous structure and electron-donating, amorphous NiRu 0.1 B catalysts show a higher activity and stability than that of Ni-B and crystalline Ni-B at low temperature. This work not only exhibits a facile method to prepare amorphous bimetallic catalysts, also demonstrates that amorphous metals are promising heterogeneous catalysts for the hydrogenation of CO 2 to FA.