Pits confined in ultrathin cerium(IV) oxide for studying catalytic centers in carbon monoxide oxidation

Yongfu Sun, Qinghua Liu, Shan Gao, Hao Cheng, Fengcai Lei, Zhihu Sun, Yong Jiang, Haibin Su, Shiqiang Wei () and Yi Xie ()
Additional contact information
Yongfu Sun: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China
Qinghua Liu: National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Shan Gao: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China
Hao Cheng: National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Fengcai Lei: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China
Zhihu Sun: National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Yong Jiang: National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Haibin Su: Nanyang Technological University
Shiqiang Wei: National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China
Yi Xie: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Finding ideal material models for studying the role of catalytic active sites remains a great challenge. Here we propose pits confined in an atomically thin sheet as a platform to evaluate carbon monoxide catalytic oxidation at various sites. The artificial three-atomic-layer thin cerium(IV) oxide sheet with approximately 20% pits occupancy possesses abundant pit-surrounding cerium sites having average coordination numbers of 4.6 as revealed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Density-functional calculations disclose that the four- and five-fold coordinated pit-surrounding cerium sites assume their respective role in carbon monoxide adsorption and oxygen activation, which lowers the activation barrier and avoids catalytic poisoning. Moreover, the presence of coordination-unsaturated cerium sites increases the carrier density and facilitates carbon monoxide diffusion along the two-dimensional conducting channels of surface pits. The atomically thin sheet with surface-confined pits exhibits lower apparent activation energy than the bulk material (61.7 versus 122.9 kJ mol−1), leading to reduced conversion temperature and enhanced carbon monoxide catalytic ability.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3899 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3899

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3899

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().