Tandem Catalysis for CO Hydrogenation to C-C Hydrocarbons.

Conversion of carbon dioxide to C-C hydrocarbons is a major pursuit in clean energy research. Despite tremendous efforts, the lack of well-defined catalysts in which the spatial arrangement of interfaces is precisely controlled hinders the development of more efficient catalysts and in-depth understanding of reaction mechanisms. Herein, we utilized the strategy of tandem catalysis to develop a well-defined nanostructured catalyst CeO-Pt@mSiO-Co for converting CO to C-C hydrocarbons using two metal-oxide interfaces. C-C hydrocarbons are found to be produced with high (60%) selectivity, which is speculated to be the result of the two-step tandem process uniquely allowed by this catalyst. Namely, the Pt/CeO interface converts CO and H to CO, and on the neighboring Co/mSiO interface yields C-C hydrocarbons through a subsequent Fischer-Tropsch process. In addition, the catalysts show no obvious deactivation over 40 h. The successful production of C-C hydrocarbons via a tandem process on a rationally designed, structurally well-defined catalyst demonstrates the power of sophisticated structure control in designing nanostructured catalysts for multiple-step chemical conversions.