Catalytic oxidation of CO over Pt/Fe3O4 catalysts: Tuning O2 activation and CO adsorption

The self-inhibition behavior due to CO poisoning on Pt metal particles strongly impairs the performance of CO oxidation. It is an effective method to use reducible metal oxides for supporting Pt metal particles to avoid self-inhibition and to improve catalytic performance. In this work, we used in situ reductions of chloroplatinic acid on commercial Fe3O4 powder to prepare heterogeneousstructured Pt/Fe3O4 catalysts in the solution of ethylene glycol. The heterogeneous Pt/Fe3O4 catalysts achieved a better catalytic performance of CO oxidation compared with the Fe3O4 powder. The temperatures of 50% and 90% CO conversion were achieved above 260°C and 290°C at Pt/Fe3O4, respectively. However, they are accomplished on Fe3O4 at temperatures higher than 310°C. XRD, XPS, and H2-TPR results confirmed that the metallic Pt atoms have a strong synergistic interaction with the Fe3O4 supports. TGA results and transient DRIFTS results proved that the Pt metal particles facilitate the release of lattice oxygen and the formation of oxygen vacancies on Fe3O4. The combined results of O2-TPD and DRIFTS indicated that the activation step of oxygen molecules at surface oxygen vacancies could potentially be the rate-determining step of the catalytic CO oxidation at Pt/ Fe3O4 catalysts. The reaction pathway involves a Pt-assisted Mars-van Krevelen (MvK) mechanism.