Thermally stable SBA-15 supported sub-2 nm gold clusters, highly active in room temperature CO oxidation: Effect of thermal pretreatment

Abstract Sub-2 nm gold clusters were prepared by adsorption of the [Au(en) 2 ]Cl 3 complex on the SBA-15 mesoporous silica surface and proper thermal treatment. It has been shown that pre-treatment in hydrogen at 400–600 °C allows stabilizing gold clusters on the support, preventing their sintering during further treatment in oxygen up to 600 °C. The high activity of the Au/SBA-15 catalyst in a low-temperature CO oxidation (~100% CO conversion at 25 °C), not typical for Au/SiO 2 systems, is attributed to the extremely small size of gold particles. The mechanism of stabilization of gold clusters on the SBA-15 support is also discussed.