Oxygen Adsorption and Low-Temperature CO Oxidation on a Nanoporous Au Catalyst: Reaction Mechanism and Foreign Metal Effects

To further our understanding of the role of trace impurities of the second metal in the catalytic performance of unsupported, nanoporous Au (NPG) catalysts, in particular for the activation of O₂, we have prepared a NPG catalyst by electrochemical leaching of Cu from a AuCu alloy and investigated its behavior in the CO oxidation reaction. The structural and chemical properties of the as-prepared catalyst as well as that after reaction for 1000 min were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The nature of the surface oxygen species and the oxygen storage capacity were investigated and quantified by multi-pulse experiments in a temporal analysis of products (TAP) reactor. The catalytic behavior in the low-temperature CO oxidation reaction was evaluated both in a TAP reactor under dynamic vacuum conditions and in a conventional micro-reactor under atmospheric pressure. We discuss implications of these results and of similar data obtained previously on a Ag-containing NPG catalyst on the reaction mechanism and on the role of the second metal in the reaction and its impact on the reaction characteristics.