Recent developments on heterogeneous catalytic CO2 reduction to methanol

Catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to methanol is an attractive option to reduce concentration of greenhouse gas and generation of renewable energy. Moreover, depletion of fossil fuel, global warming and steep hikes in the price of fuels are the key driving factor to investigate methanol synthesis by CO2 hydrogenation. In the last few decades, several investigations on catalytic CO2 hydrogenation to methanol have been reported in the literature. This article deals with a comprehensive review of all the recent studies conducted during the past decades. Furthermore, different aspects of the reaction system such as thermodynamic constrains, catalysts formulation, reactors aspects, reaction mechanism and influences of reaction conditions are discussed in detail. By now, such a discussion is still missing, and we intend to close this gap in this paper. The current scenario demonstrates the existence of immense prospects and opportunities to investigate further in this area.