Facile Preparation of Inverse Nanoporous Cr2O3/Cu Catalysts for Reverse Water-Gas Shift Reaction

The inverse oxide/metal structures represent a new class of heterogeneous catalysts with great research interests due to their diverse interfacial structures between oxides and metal supports, which often lead to unique catalytic properties. Herein, we report a facile and general strategy to prepare inverse catalysts with nanoporous structures by dealloying. As an example, inverse nanoporous Cr2O3/Cu (NP-Cr2O3/Cu) catalysts with a bi-continuous nanoporous structure are fabricated by room temperature chemical dealloying of CrCuAl alloy in alkaline solution, which exhibit excellent performance in CO2 reduction to CO (reverse water-gas shift, RWGS), significantly higher performance than the traditional Cu/Cr2O3 catalyst and inverse catalysts obtained by other traditional preparation methods. Density functional theory (DFT) calculation results show that CO2 reduction is evidently promoted by the synergistic effects of Cr2O3 cluster and nanoporous Cu. These results suggest a promising route for the preparation of various heterogeneous catalysts with tailored functionalities.