FTIR study of CO adsorption on nanosized gold, silver and copper catalysts supported on ceria

A comparative study of CO adsorption on nanosized Au, Ag and Cu supported on ceria has been performed. HRTEM images combined with EDS analysis have shown presence of very highly dispersed metallic particles on the surface of the catalysts. The FTIR results indicate that IB metals cause strong modification of the surface properties of ceria, which leads to the appearance of more co-ordinatively unsaturated sites on the surface. Reduced Au/CeO2 activates CO molecules on negatively charged nano-gold particles near to the oxygen vacancies on the ceria surface. FTIR spectra of CO adsorbed on oxidized Cu/ceria show an easy generation of metallic copper even at 90 K. Ag/ceria catalyst is almost completely unable to adsorb and activate CO molecules due to the low adsorption energy for CO on silver.