CO oxidation on Au/FePO4 catalyst: Reaction pathways and nature of Au sites

In situ FTIR spectroscopy coupled with downstream mass spectrometry has been used to clarify the pathways for room temperature (rt) CO oxidation over iron phosphate-supported Au catalyst. The charge state of Au on Au/FePO4 after calcination, reduction, or under reaction conditions was assessed by both FTIR spectroscopy (CO probing) and X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES). Results from both approaches show that cationic gold species dominate the surface after pretreatment in O2 at 200 °C. A portion of the cationic gold on Au/FePO4 can be reduced by the initial CO adsorption at rt, and subsequently repeated CO exposures do not reduce the remaining cationic Au. FTIR and Raman results from cycled CO reduction and O2 reoxidation of Au/FePO4 indicate that there are active structural oxygen species on the surface of Au/FePO4that can be consumed by CO and then replenished by gaseous O2 at rt. Au activates both CO and O2 so that the FePO4 support can undergo reduction (by CO) and reoxidation (by O2) cycles. The results of CO oxidation with labeled 18O2 suggest the operation of two parallel reaction pathways at rt: (1) a redox pathway in which FePO4 supplies active oxygen and (2) a direct pathway on metallic Au, via either Langmuir–Hinshelwood or Eley–Rideal mechanism, in which gas phase O2 provides the active oxygen.

Graphical abstractThe unusual surface redox property of Au/FePO4 provides a new pathway for CO oxidation at room temperature, i.e., CO reaction with structural oxygen of FePO4via Mars–van Krevelen mechanism in addition to the conventional direct reaction with fed O2.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload high-quality image (133 K)Download as PowerPoint slide