Fast-Response Nickel-Promoted Indium Oxide Catalysts for Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation from Intermittent Solar Hydrogen.

Construction of a "net-zero-emission" system through CO hydrogenation to methanol with solar energy is an eco-friendly way to mitigate the greenhouse effect. Traditional CO hydrogenation demands centralized mass production for cost reduction with mass water electrolysis for hydrogen supply. To achieve continuous reaction with intermittent and fluctuating flow of H on a small-scale for distributed application scenarios, modulating the catalyst interface environment and chemical adsorption capacity to adapt fluctuating reaction conditions is highly desired. This paper describes a distributed clean CO utilization system in which the surface structure of catalysts is carefully regulated. The Ni catalyst with unsaturated electrons loaded on In O can reduce the dissociation energy of H to overcome the slow response of intermittent H supply, exhibiting a faster response (12 min) than bare oxide catalysts (42 min). Moreover, the introduction of Ni enhances the sensitivity of the catalyst to hydrogen, yielding a Ni/In O catalyst with a good performance at lower H concentrations with a 15 times adaptability for wider hydrogen fluctuation range than In O , greatly reducing the negative impact of unstable H supplies derived from renewable energies.