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 (CH3OH) with the Pt4Co 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 Pt4Co NWs/C undergoes the adsorption/activation of CO2 by forming appropriate carboxylate intermediates, and thus enhancing the CH3OH production.