Recently, the research team for studying small molecules of carbon resources and hydrogen energy utilization headed by Messrs. Sun Jian and Ge Qingjie at the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics has designed a Febased catalyst incorporating multiple promotors that can achieve highly selective hydrogenation of CO2to produce linear α-olefins.

The research team through designing a Fe catalyst with coexisting iron oxide and iron carbide coupled with the coexisting electronic promotors in corncob (containing K,Mg, Ca, etc.) and the structural promotor (Si) has broken the technical bottlenecks for activation of C―O bonds via CO2hydrogenation and coupling of C―C bonds. This catalyst under mild reaction conditions can significantly increase the selectivity for olefins and linear α-olefins,leading to an once-through CO2conversion of 31%, and an olefin selectivity of 72%, with the ratio of linear α-C4―C17olefins accounting for more than 80%. By optimizing the multiple active sites and the space arrangement of promotors the research team has disclosed the key control mechanism for formation of linear α-olefins to guarantee the continuous and smooth operation of the catalyst.