Grain boundaries modulating active sites in RhCo porous nanospheres for efficient CO₂ hydrogenation

Designing active sites and engineering electronic properties of heterogeneous catalysts are both promising strategies that can be employed to enhance the catalytic activity for CO₂ hydrogenation. Herein, we report RhCo porous nanospheres with a high density of accessible grain boundaries as active sites for improved catalytic performance in the hydrogenation of CO₂ to methanol. The porous nanosphere morphological feature allows for a high population of grain boundaries to be accessible to the reactants, thereby providing sufficient active sites for the catalytic reaction. Moreover, in-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) results revealed the creation of negatively charged Rh surface atoms that promoted the activation of CO₂ to generate CO₂^δ– and methoxy intermediates. The obtained RhCo porous nanospheres exhibited remarkable low-temperature catalytic activity with a turnover frequency (TOF_Rh) of 612 h^–1, which was 6.1 and 2.5 times higher than that of Rh/C and RhCo nanoparticles, respectively. This work not only develops an efficient catalyst for CO₂ hydrogenation, but also demonstrates a potential approach for the modulation of active sites and electronic properties.