Ali Goksu

Climate change is becoming increasingly more pronounced every day while the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise. CO2 reduction to valuable chemicals is an approach which has gathered substantial attention as a means to recycle these gases. Herein we explore some of the tandem catalysis approaches that can be used to achieve transformation of CO2 to C-C coupled products, focusing especially on tandem catalytic schemes where there is a big opportunity to improve performance by designing effective catalytic nanoreactors. Recent reviews have highlighted the technical challenges and opportunities for advancing tandem catalysis, especially highlighting the need for elucidating structure-activity relationships and mechanisms of reaction through theoretical and in situ/operando characterization techniques [1–3]. In this review, we focus on nanoreactor synthesis strategies as a critical research direction, and discuss these in the context of two main tandem pathways (CO-mediated pathway and Methanol-mediated pathway) to C-C coupled products.

Nickel phosphide catalysts show a high level of selectivity for the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction, inhibiting the competing methanation reaction. This work investigates the extent to which suppression of methanation can be controlled by phosphidation and tests the stability of phosphide phases over 24-hour time on stream. Herein the synthesis of different phosphide crystal structures by varying Ni/P atomic ratios (from 0.5 to 2.4) is shown to affect the selectivity to CO over CH 4 in a significant way. We also show that the activity of these catalysts can be fine-tuned by the synthesis Ni/P ratio and identify suitable catalysts for low temperature RWGS process. Ni 12 P 5-SiO 2 showed 80–100% selectivity over the full temperature range (i.e., 300–800 • C) tested, reaching 73% CO 2 conversion at 800 • C. Ni 2 P-SiO 2 exhibited CO selectivity of 93–100% over a full temperature range, and 70% CO 2 conversion at 800 • C. The highest CO 2 conversions for Ni 12 P 5-SiO 2 at all temperatures among all catalysts showed its promising nature for CO 2 capture and utilisation. The methanation reaction was suppressed in addition to RWGS activity improvement through the formation of nickel phosphide phases, and the crystal structure was found to determine CO selectivity, with the following order Ni 12 P 5 >Ni 2 P > Ni 3 P. Based on the activity of the studied catalysts, the catalysts were ranked in order of suitability for the RWGS reaction as follows: Ni 12 P 5-SiO 2 (Ni/P = 2.4) > Ni 2 P-SiO 2 (Ni/P = 2) > NiP-SiO 2 (Ni/P = 1) > NiP 2-SiO 2 (Ni/P = 0.5). Two catalysts with Ni/P atomic ratios; 2.4 and 2, were selected for stability testing. The catalyst with Ni/P ratio = 2.4 (i.e., Ni 12 P 5-SiO 2) was found to be more stable in terms of CO 2 conversion and CO yield over the 24-hour duration at 550 • C. Using the phosphidation strategy to tune both selectivity and activity of Ni catalysts for RWGS, methanation as a competing reaction is shown to be no longer a critical issue in the RWGS process for catalysts with high Ni/P atomic ratios (2.4 and 2) even at lower temperatures (300–500 • C). This opens up potential low temperature RWGS opportunities, especially coupled to downstream or tandem lower temperature processes to produce liquid fuels.

Silica-supported nickel phosphide catalysts with varying Ni/P atomic ratios (12/5, 2, 1, and 0.5) and 15 wt.% Ni-loading are synthesized. The synthesized catalysts are calcined and subjected to Temperature Programmed Reduction (TPR) analysis to evaluate Hydrogen consumption. Pre-reaction X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis is performed on all calcined samples after reduction and passivation. The reduced catalysts are tested for the reverse water-gas shift reaction and post-reaction XRD analysis is performed on them. Stability tests are conducted on catalysts with Ni/P atomic ratios of 12/5 and 2, followed by XRD analysis of post-stability samples. The elemental composition of the catalysts at each stage is evaluated via inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) analysis. All experimental data is made available for re-use through this platform.