Catalytic Activity of Cu/Zr02 Catalyst Prepared by Coprecipitation Method for Methanol Synthesis

The purpose of this project is to study the catalytic activity of Cu/ZnO-based catalysts
and compare them with some other modified catalyst with Zirconia Zr02 • This study is
based on the physical properties of each catalyst plus the reaction kinetics. A practical
methanol synthesis process greatly requires a high performance catalyst, which must be
highly active and selective for methanol synthesis and also stable for a long period in a
continuous operation. For the preparation of Cu/ZnO-based catalyst, which had high
activity for methanol synthesis, was proposed and verified in experiments. Coprecipitation
reaction was found to be an effective route for the preparation of a highly
active and selective catalyst. Beside that it was found preparation conditions have a
significant influence on the structure and surface properties of the precursors and the
catalysts, as well as on the catalytic activities for methanol synthesis from
C02 hydrogenation. The role of metal oxides contained in Cu/ZnO-based ternary
catalysts is considered as a main concern for researchers to develop Cu/ZnO-based
multicomponent catalysts containing two or three metal oxides. Furthermore, they have
examined the change in the activity of the multicomponent catalysts during a long term
methanol synthesis test, and investigated the methanol synthesis over the
multicomponent catalysts by using a reactor with recycling equipment for unreacted
gases.