The pivotal role of oxygen vacancies in oxide nanoparticles for high-performance CO2-to-methanol over inverse ZrZnOx/Cu catalysts

Cu-supported nano-sized oxides inverse catalysts hold promise for low-temperature methanol synthesis via CO 2 hydrogenation, but their performance is highly dependent on the synthesis process. For ZrZnO x /Cu inverse catalysts, this work demonstrates that methanol synthesis activity depends linearly on the oxygen vacancy (O v ) concentration within the ZrZnO x nanoparticles, but is independent with the Cu support. Through orthogonal experiments, it is found that the density of O v is highly sensitive to precipitants, and the space-time yield of methanol can exceed 900g CH3OH /kg cat /h as long as the ZrZnO x nano-oxides were precipitated by H 2 C 2 O 4 , which are 1.6 to 2.1 times greater than those of catalysts prepared using other precipitants. Comprehensive characterization reveals that H 2 C 2 O 4 promotes the formation of uniformly dispersed ZrZnO x nanoparticles with abundant oxygen vacancies (O v ). These findings demonstrate the critical role of O v -rich oxide nanoparticles in constructing high-performance inverse catalysts and offers valuable insights into the development of efficient and stable CO 2 -to-methanol systems.