Low temperature CO oxidation on supported and unsupported gold compounds

Several simple gold compounds and their physical mixtures with TiO2 were tested for low temperature CO oxidation. No true catalytic activity was found for gold precursors on their own, although both Au2O3 and Au(OH)3 react well with CO even at room temperature in a non-catalytic manner. Despite that catalytic activity was obtained by physically mixing Au(OH)3 or Au2O3 with TiO2 and the results further emphasise the importance of a good contact between the gold and the support for good CO oxidation activity.