Spontaneous deposition of boron oxide on a rhodium nanostructure for selective conversion of syngas to ethanol.

The selective blocking of specific sites of undesired side reactions on a catalyst nanostructure is important, but challenging. Herein, we show that a boron oxide species could spontaneously and selectively react with the low-coordination sites on Rh nanoparticles, which are responsible for undesired methanation in the conversion of syngas to ethanol. As a result, the boron oxide modified RhMn nanoparticles on a silica support (RhMnB3.9/SiO2) exhibited oxygenate selectivity as high as 63.9% by methane selectivity reduced to 31.1%, of which 90.1% of the oxygenates are C2-oxygenates. Such an oxygenate selectivity outperforms supported RhMn catalysts, which usually exhibit selectivity of higher than 50% for undesired methane. This work offers an alternative route for ethanol production from syngas.