Tuning the crystallite size of monoclinic ZrO2 to reveal critical roles of surface defects on m–ZrO2 catalyst for direct synthesis of isobutene from syngas

Abstract The effects of crystallite size on the physicochemical properties and surface defects of pure monoclinic ZrO2 catalysts for isobutene synthesis was studied. We prepared a series of monoclinic ZrO2 catalysts with different crystallite size by changing calcination temperature and evaluated their catalytic performance for isobutene synthesis from syngas. ZrO2 with small crystalline size showed higher CO conversion and isobutene selectivity, while samples with large crystalline size preferred to form dimethyl ether (DME) instead of hydrocarbons, much less to isobutene. Oxygen defects (ODefects) analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) provided evidence that more ODefects occupied on the surface of ZrO2 catalysts with smaller crystalline size. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance (UV-vis DRS) confirmed the presence of high concentration of surface defects and Zr3+ on m-ZrO2-5.9 sample, respectively. In situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (in situ DRIFTS) analysis indicated that the adsorption strength of formed formate species on catalyst reduced as the crystalline size decreased. These results suggested that surface defects were responsible for CO activation and further influenced the adsorption strength of surface species, and thus the products distribution changed. This study provides an in-depth insight for active sites regulation of ZrO2 catalyst in CO hydrogenation reaction.