Highly Efficient Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation to Methanol Catalyzed by Zigzag Platinum-Cobalt Nanowires

Carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) hydrogenation is an effective strategy for CO₂ utilization, while unsatisfied conversion efficiencies remain great challenges. It is reported herein that zigzag Pt-Co nanowires (NWs) with Pt-rich surfaces and abundant steps/edges can perform as highly active and stable CO₂ hydrogenation catalysts. It is found that tuning the Pt/Co ratio of the Pt-Co NWs, solvents, and catalyst supports could well optimize the CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol (CH₃ OH) with the Pt₄ Co NWs/C exhibiting the best performance, outperforming all the previous catalysts. They are also very durable with limited activity decays after six catalytic cycles. The diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy result of CO₂ adsorption shows that the Pt₄ Co NWs/C undergoes the adsorption/activation of CO₂ by forming appropriate carboxylate intermediates, and thus enhancing the CH₃ OH production.