Spontaneous deposition of boron oxide on a rhodium nanostructure for selective conversion of syngas to ethanol
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Updated: Jan 14, 2026
Chemical Precipitation Method for the Synthesis of Nb2O5 Modified Bulk Nickel Catalysts with High Specific Surface Area
Published on: February 19, 2018
Jiale Xiao1,2, Cao Wang1, Haotian Meng1,2
1College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Department of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and Low-carbon Technology, Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310058 China ctwang@zju.edu.cn liangcao@zju.edu.cn fsxiao@zju.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The selective blocking of specific sites of undesired side reactions on a catalyst nanostructure is important, but challenging. Herein, we show that a boron oxide species could spontaneously and selectively react with the low-coordination sites on Rh nanoparticles, which are responsible for undesired methanation in the conversion of syngas to ethanol. As a result, the boron oxide modified RhMn nanoparticles on a silica support (RhMnB3.9/SiO2) exhibited oxygenate selectivity as high as 63.9% by methane selectivity reduced to 31.1%, of which 90.1% of the oxygenates are C2-oxygenates. Such an oxygenate selectivity outperforms supported RhMn catalysts, which usually exhibit selectivity of higher than 50% for undesired methane. This work offers an alternative route for ethanol production from syngas.
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