{"title":"Engineering MOx/Ni inverse catalysts for low-temperature CO2 activation with high methane yields","authors":"Chuqiao Song, Jinjia Liu, Ruihang Wang, Xin Tang, Kun Wang, Zirui Gao, Mi Peng, Haibo Li, Siyu Yao, Feng Yang, Hanfeng Lu, Zuwei Liao, Xiao-Dong Wen, Ding Ma, Xiaonian Li, Lili Lin","doi":"10.1038/s44286-024-00122-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-024-00122-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Low-temperature methanation allows the near-equilibrium conversion of CO<sub>2</sub> to methane at atmospheric pressure, promising remarkable energy efficiency and economic interests. However, it remains challenging for the efficient catalytic activation of CO<sub>2</sub> at low temperature owing to the kinetic limitations of hydrogenation intermediates. Here we report that Ni-based inverse catalysts composed of oxide nano-islands loaded on metallic Ni support show significant activity advantages over traditional Ni/oxide with the same composition. The optimized CeZrO<sub><i>x</i></sub>/Ni catalyst realizes ~90% CO<sub>2</sub> conversion and >99% CH<sub>4</sub> selectivity at 200 °C and atmospheric pressure; it also exhibits excellent long-term stability and overheating/start–stop cyclic operation stability. Mechanistic studies show that the inverse interface effectively modulates H<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> coverage and alters the configuration of adsorbed oxygenates, which benefits the hydrogenation of surface intermediates. Energy and economic analyses demonstrate that the low-temperature CO<sub>2</sub> methanation process powered by inverse catalysts potentially reduces both capital investment and methane production costs.</p><figure></figure>","PeriodicalId":520229,"journal":{"name":"Nature Chemical Engineering","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142317818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}