Highly dispersed Cd cluster supported on TiO2 as an efficient catalyst for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol

The conversion of CO2 with high activity and high selectivity to methanol remains challenging because of both the kinetics and thermodynamics difficulties associated with the chemical reactivity of CO2. Herein, we report a new catalyst of Cd/TiO2 enabling 81% methanol selectivity at 15.8% CO2 conversion with the CH4 selectivity below 0.7%. The combination of experimental and computational studies show that the unique electronic properties of Cd cluster supported on TiO2 are responsible for the high selectivity for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol via a HCOO* pathway realized at the interface catalytic sites.