The oxidation of CO is the archetypal heterogeneous catalytic reaction and plays a central role in the advancement of fundamental studies, the control of automobile emissions, and industrial oxidation reactions. Copper-based catalysts were the first catalysts that were reported to enable the oxidation of CO at room temperature, but a lack of stability at the elevated reaction temperatures that are used in automobile catalytic converters, in particular the loss of the most reactive Cu+ cations, leads to their deactivation. Using a combined experimental and theoretical approach, it is shown how the incorporation of titanium cations in a copper oxide catalyst leads to the formation of a stable mixed-metal oxide with stabilized Cu+ sites that are highly active for CO oxidation.

Stabilization of catalytically active Cu+ surface sites on titanium–copper mixed-oxides

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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