Investigation of the Calcination Temperature and Aging Period on the Properties of CuO-ZnO-Al2O3 Catalysts Synthesized by Co-Precipitation Method for Use in the Methanol Synthesis Reaction

As one of the promising approaches, the thermocatalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to methanol through a heterogeneous catalyst has attracted much attention in the past decades. In industry, methanol is produced from the reaction of syngas (H2+CO) and carbon dioxide over CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 (CZA) catalysts. Co-precipitation of Cu/Zn/Al nitrates by sodium carbonate is the dominant and standard technique used for the industrial synthesis of methanol catalysts. This three-component catalyst is very sensitive to slight changes in metal components and synthesis parameters. In this study, the effect of calcination temperatures (300, 350, and 400°C) and aging time (2, 7, and 18 hours) on the structure and textural properties of CuO/ZnO/Al2O3 catalysts have been investigated using the BET, XRD, H2-TPR, and FE-SEM analyses. The results show that the most appropriate catalyst could be synthesized when the calcination temperature and the aging period were set to 350°C and 7 hours, respectively.