Understanding of catalysis on early transition metal oxide-based catalysts through exploration of surface structure and chemistry during catalysis using in-situ approaches
- Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. Dept. of Chemistry; Notre Dame Research Administration
Two main categories of heterogeneous catalysts are metal and metal oxide which catalyze 80% chemical reactions at solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces. Metal oxide catalysts are much more complicated than metal catalysts. The reason is that the cations of the metal atoms could exhibit a few different oxidation states on surface of the same catalyst particle such as Co3O4 or change of their oxidation states under different reactive environments. For a metal catalyst, there is only one oxidation state typically. In addition, surface of a metal oxide can be terminated with multiple surface functionalities including O atoms with different binding configurations and OH group. For metal, only metal atoms are exposed typically. Obviously, the complication of surface chemistry and structure of a metal oxide makes studies of surface of an oxide catalyst very challenging. Due to the complication of surface of a meal oxide, the electronic and geometric structures of surface of a metal oxide and the exposed species have received enormous attention since oxide catalysts catalyze at least 1/3 chemical reactions in chemical and energy industries. Understanding of catalytic reactions on early transition metal oxide-based catalysts is fundamentally intriguing and of great practical interest in energy- and environment-related catalysis. Exploration of surface chemistry of oxide-based catalysts at molecular level during catalysis has remained challenging though it is critical in deeply understanding catalysis on oxide-based catalysts and developing oxide-based catalysts with high activity and selectivity. Thus, the overall objective of this project is to explore surface chemistry and structure of early transition metal oxide-based catalysts through in-situ characterization of surface of catalysts, measurements of catalytic performances, and then build an intrinsic correlation of surface chemistry and structure with their catalytic performances in a few important catalytic reactions, and essentially fundamentally understand catalytic mechanism. Furthermore, this correlation will guide the design of catalysts with high activity and selectivity.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0008625
- OSTI ID:
- 1331817
- Report Number(s):
- DE--SC0008625
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Surface chemistry connecting heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis and plasmonic catalysis
Perspectives in catalysis