Liquid fuel synthesis via CO2 hydrogenation by coupling homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis

Synthesis of liquid fuel (C5+ hydrocarbons) via CO2 hydrogenation generally involves cascade catalysis of reverse water gas shift (RWGS) and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) reactions over heterogeneous catalysts. Because of thermodynamic limitations of the cascade reactions, the reported heterogeneous catalysts usually suffer from high temperature (above 300°C) and low selectivity. Here, we report the liquid fuel production from CO2 hydrogenation by coupling homogeneous RuCl3 and heterogeneous Ru0 catalysts, which proceeded at the lowest temperature reported so far (180°C) and reached the highest C5+ selectivity to date (71.1%). The TOF of the CO2 hydrogenation reached 9.5 h−1, which is comparable with that of the reported Ru0 catalyzed FTS reaction using syngas. Detailed study indicates that synergy of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis is the key for the outstanding performance.