Dynamic behaviour of platinum and copper dopants in gold nanoclusters supported on ceria catalysts

Nicole Müller, Banu Rares, Adea Loxha, Florian Schrenk, Lorenz Lindenthal, Christoph Rameshan, Ernst Pittenauer, Jordi Llorca, Janis Timoshenko, Carlo Marini, Noelia Barrabés

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Abstract

Understanding the behaviour of active catalyst sites at the atomic level is crucial for optimizing catalytic performance. Here, the evolution of Pt and Cu dopants in Au25 clusters on CeO2 supports is investigated in the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction, using operando XAFS and DRIFTS. Different behaviour is observed for the Cu and Pt dopants during the pretreatment and reaction. The Cu migrates and builds clusters on the support, whereas the Pt creates single-atom active sites on the surface of the cluster, leading to better performance. Doping with both metals induces strong interactions and pretreatment and reaction conditions lead to the growth of the Au clusters, thereby affecting their catalytic behaviour. This highlights importance of understanding the behaviour of atoms at different stages of catalyst evolution. These insights into the atomic dynamics at the different stages are crucial for the precise optimisation of catalysts, which ultimately enables improved catalytic performance.
Original languageEnglish
Article number277
Number of pages10
JournalCommunications chemistry
Volume2023
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Dec 2023

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