Synthesis of oxygen vacancies enriched Cu/ZnO/CeO2 for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol

Ternary CuO/ZnO/CeO2 catalysts for methanol synthesis from CO2 were successfully prepared and modified by electron etching with plasma as the electron source. Results indicate that the plasma decomposition leads to higher specific surface, unique structure, and the formation of copper species with a high dispersion, while enhancing reducibility of Cu particles and promoting the catalyst‐support interaction due to the especially low temperature of plasma process. Most interesting, electron bombardment produces more oxygen vacancy on CeO2, which facilitates to increase interaction between Cu, Zn, and CeO2. CO2 molecules are preferably adsorbed on the oxygen vacancies of CeO2 to generate carbonate species. Furthermore, the study shows that CeO2 is a highly tunable material, which has great catalytic potential for carbon dioxide due to its unique properties, such as rich oxygen vacancy and metal−support interaction, especially under plasma conditions. Surprisingly, Catalytic evaluation revealed that CuO/ZnO/CeO2 by plasma exhibited a remarkable space‐time yield of 162.7 g methanol·kg–1 cat·h–1 (1.5 times of that of conventional calcined catalyst) at 260 °C. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.