Ceria-based materials are widely applied in both gas and liquid phase catalysis due to ceria’s unique redox property. In gas phase catalytic reactions accompanied with high temperature, metal nanoparticles supported on ceria show high catalytic activity with enhanced thermal stability due to strong metal-support interaction. In addition, ceria nanoparticles by themselves can be used as an active material for liquid phase redox reactions such as scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS). Herein, we introduce in situ TEM studies to understand catalytic activity of systems based on ceria. We directly observe migration and coalescence of monodisperse platinum nanoparticle supported on ceria under elevated temperature. We also augment our study to monitor stability of nano-sized ceria and ceria-zirconia solid solution nanoparticles under highly-reactive liquid conditions by using in situ liquid phase TEM. We clearly elucidate the dissolution of reactive facets in liquid phase which is attributed to the observed catalytic performances from experiments.

Understanding the dynamics of ceria-based catalysts using in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM)

256th National Meeting (2018)

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