Recently, the chemical conversion of the greenhouse gas CO₂ into value-added methanol has been of great interest. To address this issue, ZnO nanorods were synthesized by a facile microwave assisted technique and selected as support in Cu/ZnO catalyst. Herein, structure-activity relationship of the as-prepared catalysts in CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol were elucidated in detail using different characterization technique including N₂ physisorption, XRD, TPR, TEM, XPS and insitu DRIFTS (CO chemisorption) etc. Interestingly, rodlike ZnO hosted the highly dispersed Cu species, stronger Cu-support interaction at the interface in comparison with another reference CuZn-C sample, which was supported on commercial ZnO. In particular, EPR and XPS analysis evidenced the direct electron transfer from ZnO support to Cu species in CuZn-R, thereby facilitating the formation of O vacancies. These positive factors could provide the extremely active sites for CO₂ hydrogenation and be correlated to the better catalytic activity. Indeed, the calculated TOF_methanol for CuZn-R was approximately ten times larger than that of CuZn-C sample. The results implied that the morphology structure of ZnO support, which could induce various crystal planes and amounts of defects and/or imperfections, possessed a critical role on the catalytic performance. This finding might shed light on the design of efficient catalysts for catalytic conversion of the undesirable CO₂.

近来，温室气体CO ₂到增值甲醇的化学转化引起了人们的极大兴趣。为了解决这个问题，通过简便的微波辅助技术合成了ZnO纳米棒，并选择其作为Cu / ZnO催化剂的载体。在此，使用包括N ₂在内的不同表征技术，详细阐明了在CO ₂加氢中制得的催化剂与甲醇的构效关系。有趣的是，棒状ZnO具有高度分散的Cu物种，与另一种支持的参考CuZn-C样品相比，其界面处的Cu-支撑相互作用更强。在商用ZnO上。特别是，EPR和XPS分析证明了电子从ZnO载体直接转移到CuZn-R中的Cu物种，从而促进了O空位的形成。这些积极因素可以为CO ₂加氢提供极活泼的位置，并与更好的催化活性相关。实际上，计算出的TOF_甲醇CuZn-R的样品比CuZn-C样品的样品大约大十倍。结果表明，ZnO载体的形貌结构可以诱导各种晶面和大量的缺陷和/或缺陷，对催化性能具有至关重要的作用。这一发现可能为有效催化不希望的CO ₂转化的催化剂的设计提供了启示。