Fabrication of PdZn alloy catalysts supported on ZnFe composite oxide for CO hydrogenation to methanol.

The conversion of CO to methanol is of great significance for providing a means of CO fixation and the development of future fuels. Supported Pd catalysts have been demonstrated to be active for CO hydrogenation to methanol and PdZn alloy plays a key role in this reaction. Therefore, using ZnO-enriched support to increase the amount of nanometric PdZn alloy particles on the surface is an effective strategy to develop ideal catalysts. Herein, we fabricated a PdZn alloy catalyst supported on ZnO-enriched ZnFeO spinel for efficient CO hydrogenation to methanol. The amount of formed PdZn alloy and catalyst structure influenced by ZnO concentration on ZnFeO were explored to obtain the best Pd-ZFO catalyst, which achieves a methanol space-time yield (STY) of 593 gkgh (12 ggh) with CO conversion of 14% under reaction conditions of 290 °C, 4.5 MPa and 21600 mLgh. Furthermore, the amount of exposed PdZn alloy sites were measured by using CO-pulse chemisorption and we find a linearity between methanol production rate and PdZn alloy sites.