The direct hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol using hydrogen is regarded as a potential technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the dependence on fossil fuels. For this technology to become feasible, highly selective and productive catalysts that can operate under a wide range of reaction conditions near thermodynamic conversion are required. Here we combine a CO-producing In oxide catalyst with a methane-producing Co catalyst to obtain In/Co catalyst for CO2 reduction to methanol. Density functional (DFT) simulations demonstrate that the charge transfer between Co support and In oxide film leads to enrichment of the surface of indium oxide with O vacancies, which serve as active sites for selective conversion of CO2 to methanol. Moreover, our simulations suggest that CO2 reduction on Co-supported In2O3-x films will 2 preferentially yield methanol, rather than CO and methane. As a result, the prepared In@Co catalysts produce methanol from CO2 with high selectivity (>80%) and productivity (0.86 gCH3OH.gcatalyst -1 .h -1 ) at conversion levels close to thermodynamic equilibrium, even at temperatures as high as 300 C and at moderate pressures (50 bar).

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The alarming atmospheric concentration and continuous emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) require immediate action. As a result of advances in CO2 capture and sequestration technologies (generally involving point sources such as energy generation plants), large amounts of pure CO2 will soon be available. In addition to geological storage and other applications of the captured CO2, the development of technologies able to convert this carbon feedstock into commodity chemicals may pave the way towards a more sustainable economy. Here, we present a novel multifunctional catalyst consisting of Fe2O3 encapsulated in K2CO3 that can transform CO2 into olefins via a tandem mechanism. In contrast to traditional systems in Fischer‐Tropsch reactions, we demonstrate that when dealing with CO2 conversion (in contrast to CO), very high K loadings are key to activate CO2 via the well‐known ‘potassium carbonate mechanism’. The proposed catalytic process is demonstrated to be as productive as existing commercial processes based on synthesis gas while relying on economically and environmentally advantageous CO2 feedstock.

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