Effects of identities of supports on Fe-based catalyst and their consequences on activities of CO2 hydrogenation to olefins

The direct synthesis of olefins by CO₂ hydrogenation with iron-based catalysts is one of the best ways to achieve CO₂ emission reduction and CO₂ conversion and utilization. At present, the CO₂ hydrogenation activity and structural strength of the iron-based catalysts are still relatively low during CO₂ hydrogenation process, which has become an important challenge for the industrialization of CO₂ hydrogenation to olefins. In this work, a series of the supported iron-based catalyst was prepared by the impregnation method to study the influence of the properties of support materials on the structure of iron-based catalysts and the reactivities of the direct synthesis of olefins from CO₂ hydrogenation. This work found that the support induced the iron species formed during the process of CO₂ hydrogenation, simultaneously affected the order degree of carbon species on the surface of iron-based catalyst, and tuned the capability of CO₂ adsorption and the activities of CO₂ activation. The results shown that the Fe-based catalyst supported on ZrO₂ exhibited the best catalytic performance for CO₂ hydrogenation to olefins at 320℃ and 2.0 MPa. The CO₂ conversion (>30%) and the selectivity of olefins in C₂—C₇ hydrocarbon products were as high as over 85%, the ratio of olefins to paraffins was 8.2, and the CO selectivity was 17.1%.