Insights into the reaction mechanism and particle size effects of CO oxidation over supported Pt nanoparticle catalysts

CO oxidation is an extensively studied reaction in heterogeneous catalysis due to its seeming simplicity and its great importance for emission control. However, the role of particle size and more specifically structure sensitivity in this reaction is still controversial. In the present study, colloidal “surfactant-free” Pt nanoparticles (NPs) in a size regime of 1–4 nm with narrow size distribution and control over particle size were synthesized and subsequently supported on Al2O3 to prepare model catalysts. CO oxidation was performed using Pt NPs catalysts with particles sizes of 1, 2, 3, and 4 nm at different reaction temperatures. It is shown that the reaction exhibits a particle size effect that depends strongly on the reaction conditions. At 170 °C, the reaction seems to proceed within the same kinetic regime for all particle sizes, but the surface normalized activity depends strongly on the particle size, with maximum activity for nanoparticles 2 nm in diameter. A temperature increase to 200 °C leads to a change of the kinetic regime that depends on the particle size. For Pt NPs 1 nm in diameter a reaction order of 1 for O2 was observed, indicating that O2 adsorbs molecularly and dissociates in a following step, which represents the generally accepted mechanism on Pt surfaces. The reaction order of −1 for CO demonstrates that the surface is saturated with CO under reaction conditions. With increasing particle size, the reaction orders of O2 and CO change. For particles 2 nm in size, an increase in temperature also results in reaction orders of 1 for O2 and −1 for CO; NPs of 3 and 4 nm, even at higher temperatures, show no clear kinetic behavior that can be explained by a single reaction mechanism. Instead, the Boudouard reaction between two adjacent adsorbed CO molecules was identified as an important additional reaction pathway that occurs preferentially on large particles and causes more complex kinetics.