Incorporation of Epoxy Carbon onto CeO₂-Supported Pt to Tackle the CO Self-Poisoning Issue

The catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide (CO) under ambient conditions plays a crucial role in the abatement of indoor CO, which poses risks to human health. Despite the notable activity exhibited by Pt-based catalysts in CO oxidation, their efficacy is usually diminished by the CO self-poisoning issue. In this work, three different Pt/CeO 2 -based catalysts, which have distinct coordinative environments of Pt but an identical Pt/CeO 2 substrate structure, were synthesized by activating the catalyst with CO using different temperatures and durations. Compared with clean and graphite-covered Pt on CeO 2, the one modified by epoxy carbon showed higher activity and stability. The combination of characterizations and density functional theory modeling demonstrated that the clean Pt on CeO 2 rapidly deactivated due to the CO self-poisoning albeit high initial activity, and conversely, low initial activity was observed for the more stable graphite-covered catalyst due to the obstruction of the Pt site. In contrast, epoxy carbon species on Pt shifted the d-band of Pt to lower energy, weakening the Pt–CO binding strength. Such a modification mitigated the self-poisoning effect while maintaining ample active sites and enabling the complete oxidative removal of CO under ambient conditions. This work may provide a general approach to tackling the self-poisoning issue.