Catalytic hydrogenation of CO₂ on sulfur-tolerant catalysts

CO₂ is a well know greenhouse gas and the amount in the atmosphere is still rising. The goal of this work was to study recycling and utilization of carbon dioxide in flue gas by catalytic reduction. Flue gas contains about 10–15 vol.% CO₂, oxygen, water and traces of sulfur containing substances. There are several ways to convert CO₂ into valuable compounds using different catalysts. For example: Ni based catalysts for methane formation, Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ for methanol production or MoS₂ based catalysts for alcohol synthesis. However, the sulfur contamination in the flue gas leads to deactivation of many catalysts. MoS₂ based catalysts should not be affected by sulfur containing feed gas. Therefore, in this work, we have studied MoS₂ based catalysts in order to learn about correlations between synthesis and composition, structural and catalytic properties and compared it to commercial catalysts.