Conversion of CO2 to gasoline over tandem Fe/C and HZSM-5 catalysts

Abstract

Thermal catalytic conversion of CO₂ to produce high-value gasoline is a promising and sustainable way to deal with greenhouse gases and alleviate the energy crisis and environmental problems. Although significant efforts have been invested in this area, the active catalysts required to achieve high gasoline space time yields remain a bottleneck in the process. Herein, we provided an easy-to-prepare Fe/C catalyst coupled with HZSM-5 as a tandem catalyst, showing a surprisingly high gasoline space-time yield of 91.2 μmol_CO2 g_Fe⁻¹ s⁻¹. The catalyst contained three active sites (Fe₃O₄, Fe₅C₂ and acid sites) that could synergistically catalyze a tandem reaction. Tandem catalysts loaded in layers could better exploit the activity of the three sites. The highly selective light olefins produced on the Fe/C catalyst could be converted to gasoline on downstream HZSM-5. More promisingly, the stable and excellent CO₂ hydrogenation to light olefin activity of the Fe/C catalyst and the excellent anti-carbon deposition ability of HZSM-5 resulted in no significant deactivation of the tandem catalyst over 180 h. Overall, the present work provides a green and efficient catalyst for the conversion of CO₂ to gasoline, which will benefit the sustainability of the field in the near future.