Spaced-confined capsule catalysts with tunable micro-environments for efficient CO₂ conversion

CO2 as a greenhouse gas causes a series of issues, and catalytic utilization of CO2 to fuels is a favorable strategy. Herein, we report the discovery in CO2 hydrogenation reaction where C5+ yield can be evidently improved by encapsulating ZnFe2O4 inside ZSM-5, in which the micro-environments of core-shell components can be tuned. For the ZnFe2O4, the K promoter makes the Fe-C structure more electron deficient than the Na, which contributes to the formation of long-chain olefins. ZSM-5 with K or Ce modification presents enhanced adsorption ability of alkene, then promoting aromatization and isomerization reactions of alkenes. Compared with Ce, K-ZSM-5 contributes to isomerization rather than aromatization, forming more isoparaffins. In this work, regulating the microenvironment of capsule catalysts provides a new idea for the design of efficient tandem catalysts, and expands the ability of hybrid catalysts against other catalysts, thus presenting an excellent catalytic efficiency for CO2 upgrading.