Low-temperature catalytic NO reduction with CO by subnanometric Pt clusters

Abstract

The catalytic subnanometric metal clusters with a few atoms can be regarded as an intermediate state between single atoms and metal nanoparticles (>1 nm). Their molecule-like electronic structures and flexible geometric structures bring rich chemistry and also a different catalytic behavior, in comparison with the single-atom or nanoparticulate counterparts. In this work, by combination of operando IR spectroscopy techniques and electronic structure calculations, we will show a comparative study on Pt catalysts for CO + NO reaction at a very low temperature range (140–200 K). It has been found that single Pt atoms immobilized on MCM-22 zeolite are not stable under reaction conditions and agglomerate into Pt nanoclusters and particles, which are the working active sites for CO + NO reaction. In the case of the catalyst containing Pt nanoparticles (∼2 nm), the oxidation of CO to CO2 occurs in a much lower extension, and Pt nanoparticles become poisoned under reaction conditions because of a strong interaction with CO and NO. Therefore, only subnanometric Pt clusters allow NO dissociation at a low temperature and CO oxidation to occur well on the surface, while CO interaction is weak enough to avoid catalyst poisoning, resulting in a good balance to achieve enhanced catalytic performance. ; This work has been supported by the European Union through the European Research Council (grant ERC-AdG-2014-671093, SynCatMatch) and the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Program" (SEV-2016-0683) and MAT2017-82288-C2-1-P projects. L.L. thanks ITQ for providing a contract. E.F. thanks MINECO for her fellowship SVP-2013-068146. The authors also thank Microscopy Service of UPV for the TEM and STEM measurements. The HRSTEM studies were conducted at the Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain. R.A. acknowledges support from Spanish MINECO grant MAT2016-79776-P (AEI/FEDER, UE), from the Government of Aragon and the European Social Fund (grant number E13_17R, FEDER, UE), and from the European Union H2020 program "ESTEEM3" (grant number 823717). ; Peer reviewed