Revealing the Role of CO during CO2 Hydrogenation on Cu Surfaces with In Situ Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy

ACS Publications have published an article by Swallow et Al which investigates “the reactions of H2, CO2, and CO gas mixtures on the surface of Cu at 200 °C, relevant for industrial methanol synthesis, using a combination of ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) and atmospheric-pressure near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (AtmP-NEXAFS) spectroscopy bridging pressures from 0.1 mbar to 1 bar.” The abstract concludes that “the importance of maintaining metallic Cu sites during the methanol synthesis reaction is thereby highlighted, with the inclusion of CO in the gas feed helping to achieve this even in the absence of ZnO as the catalyst support”.

Silson’s silicon nitride membranes were used for the AtmP-NEXAFS measurements, which were performed at beamline B07-C of Diamond Light Source, UK. The membranes were of size 500 x 500 μm and of thickness 100nm, used in a custom-designed flow cell and were relied upon to withstand a >1 bar pressure difference.

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