Probing the stability of Pt nanoparticles encapsulated in sol–gel Al2O3 using in situ and ex situ characterization techniques

• Pt/Al2O3 catalysts were produced from Pt nanoparticles capped by PVP.
• Stability of the nanoparticles during the support phase transition was addressed.
• Higher PVP/Pt ratio increases the stability of Pt-NPs encapsulated in alumina.
• PVP/Pt ratio impacts the catalytic performance in the water gas shift reaction.

In this work, we address the stability of platinum nanoparticles (Pt-NPs) encapsulated in alumina. Colloidal Pt-NPs capped with poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP) were prepared and enclosed in an oxide matrix by incorporating them during the sol–gel synthesis of boehmite. PVP/Pt molar ratios of 0.2 and 10 produced particles with similar average diameters (<3 nm) but showed very different thermal stability in the alumina support. We investigated the calcination process and the phase transition of the support (boehmite to γ-Al2O3) by several techniques, showing that Pt-NPs catalyzed PVP decomposition at lower temperature than required for dehydroxylation of boehmite, causing sintering of the Pt-NPs when the PVP/Pt ratio was low. The results showed that a high PVP/Pt ratio was required to encapsulate and stabilize the Pt-NPs in the γ-Al2O3 support, having a direct impact in the catalytic performance of the materials in the water gas shift reaction.

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