Preferential CO oxidation over catalysts with well-defined inverse opal structure in microchannels

Catalyst supports of CeO2/SiO2 and Al2O3 with three-dimensionally ordered macroporous structure were fabricated in microchannels by application of PMMA opals as templates. Pt–Rh supported on CeO2/SiO2 showed high efficiency for CO removal in preferential CO oxidation in the presence of excess hydrogen. Pt–Rh supported on Al2O3 with an inverse opal structure showed higher reactivity than that supported on wash-coated Al2O3 layers in microchannel reactor.