Plasma catalytic CO2 hydrogenation to methanol: The interaction between MnOx and ZrO2

Plasma catalytic CO2 hydrogenation to methanol over MnOx/ZrO2 catalyst was investigated in this work. A boosted methanol yield of 4.6 mg/h was obtained over MnOx/ZrO2 catalyst, while it was only 0.0 and 0.7 mg/h for ZrO2 and MnOx catalyst, respectively. The interaction between MnOx and ZrO2 was responsible for the enhanced methanol yield. It resulted in sufficient oxygen vacancy. The in situ DRIFT spectra was conducted to reveal the plasma catalytic CO2 hydrogenation to methanol reaction mechanism and the key intermediates of HCOO and CH3O species were determined. The sufficient oxygen vacancy promoted the formation of the key intermediates, especially the CH3O species.