Unraveling the interactions between catalyst s with their nanostructured support is critical for the design of new catalytic materials.  An unexpected catalytic activity trend of nanostructured ceria decorated with gold clusters of gold content between 0.001 and 2 atomic percent (at. %) has been identified based on our experimental and modeling studies. Our results revealed that highly defective nanostructured ceria (CeO2-x) containing very little gold content (0.001 at.%) can be more catalytically effective towards the carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation reaction than ones with larger gold loads. This low gold content catalyst was found to have reactivity as high as those of cerium oxide decorated with up to 20 at.% gold reported in the literature. A combined experimental and theoretical approach to understand these supported gold cluster catalysts yielded fundamental and systematic information on their size-dependent reactivity for this catalyst system.  Our observed catalytic activity trend has multiple local maxima, with ceria decorated with 0.01 at.% gold being more active than ones with 0.1 at.% or 1 at.%  gold.

Less is more: An unexpected trend of catalytic activity for nanostructured ceria decorated with gold from 0.001 to 2 atomic percent

246th National Meeting (2013)

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