Glucose modification strategy facilitates efficient LPG production from CO₂ hydrogenation over the InZrO_x/β composite catalyst

Enhancing methanol intermediate selectivity is crucial for efficient CO₂ hydrogenation to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) via the methanol-mediated pathway. However, unmodified metal oxides usually exhibit common catalytic performance. Herein, we develop an efficient catalyst improvement method, which employs glucose solution to modify the InZrO_x. Characterizations show that the introduction of glucose increases the content of oxygen vacancies and hydroxyl groups, thus significantly increasing the CO₂ adsorption ability. Meanwhile, they may also enhance the transformation of the HCOO* intermediate and produce more methanol. Therefore, InZrO_x-3 M increases the CO₂ conversion from 9.7 % to 16.2 % and the methanol selectivity from 42.8 % to 69.4 %, compared with the unmodified InZrO_x-0 M. After further combining with the Hβ zeolite, the composite catalyst achieves a high LPG selectivity of 71.8 %, which is obviously higher than that of 17.8 % in the composite catalyst composed of InZrO_x-0 M. This study provides in-depth insights into glucose-assisted metal oxides and offers a promising strategy for designing effective CO₂-to-LPG catalysts via the methanol-mediated pathway.