Highly dispersed boron-nitride/CuOx-supported Au nanoparticles for catalytic CO oxidation at low temperatures

Abstract

Supported-Au catalysts show excellent activity in CO oxidation, where the nature of the support has a significant impact on catalytic activity. In this work, a hexagonal boron nitride (BN) support with a high surface area and adequately exposed edges was obtained by the ball-milling technique. Thereafter, impregnation of the BN support with Cu(NO3)2 followed by calcination under air at 400 °C yielded a CuO-modified support. After Au loading, the obtained Au-CuOx/BN catalyst exhibited high CO oxidation activity at low temperatures with a 50% CO conversion temperature (T50%) of 25 °C and a complete CO conversion temperature (T100%) of 80 °C, well within the operational temperature range of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, the CO oxidation activity of Au/BN, prepared without CuOx for comparison, was found to be relatively low. Our study reveals that BN alone disperses both Cu and Au nanoparticles well. However, Au nanoparticles on the surface of BN in the absence of CuO species tend to aggregate upon CO oxidation reactions. Conversely, Au nanoparticles supported on the surface of CuO-modified BN remain small with an average size of ∼2.0 nm before and after CO oxidation. Moreover, electron transfer between Au and Cu species possibly favors the stabilization of highly dispersed Au nanoparticles on the BN surface and also enhances CO adsorption. Thus, our results demonstrate that thermally stable and conductive CuO-modified BN is an excellent support for the preparation of highly dispersed and stable Au catalysts.