Utilization of CO2 as feedstock to produce fine chemicals and renewable fuels is a highly promising field, which presents unique challenges in its implementation at scale. Heterogeneous catalysis with its simple operation and industrial compatibility can be an effective means of achieving this challenging task. This review summarizes the current developments in heterogeneous thermal catalysis for the production of carbon monoxide, alcohols and hydrocarbons from CO2. A detailed discussion is provided regarding structure-activity correlations between catalyst surface and intermediate species which can aid in rational design of future generation catalysts. Effects of active metal components, catalyst supports, and promoters are discussed in each section, which will guide researchers to synthesize new catalysts with improved selectivity and stability. Additionally, a brief overview regarding process design considerations has been provided. Future research directions are proposed with special emphasis on the application scope of new catalytic materials and possible approaches of increasing catalyst performance.

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 mechanistic understanding of coke formation on zeolites is elusive, given the limitations for the extraction and analysis of coke species. Here, we analyze the evolution of deactivating coke species...

The direct conversion of CO2 to value-added products has received considerable attention as it can effectively mitigate CO2 emission and alleviate over-reliance on fossil fuels. We report the synthesis of...