Microwave non-thermal fusion of MOFs derived Cu-O-Ce interface for boosting CO preferential oxidation

Abstract

Engineering of uniformly-distributed and well-combined multi-component interface is sustainable but challenging for acquiring heterogeneous catalysts. Herein, the low energy consumption of microwave-fuse preparation is imposed on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) namely Cu-MOF and Ce-MOF to manipulate Cu-O-Ce interface for preferential CO oxidation in H2-rich stream. By comprehensive characterizations, it is discovered that a unique spontaneous-migration of active Cu species onto Ce matrix will be driven by the microwave-fuse to form evenly-distributed and compactly-integrated Cu-O-Ce interface at low temperature, which is 200 °C lower than that required by traditional pyrolysis, clearly indicating the unique non-thermal function of microwave processing on fine-tuning oxide composite interface. In-situ Raman and in-situ DRIFTs further elucidate the improvement on synergistic redox feature along Cu2+-Ovac-Ce3+, leading to 100 % conversion of CO at 75–170 °C. These findings suggest that the unique self-migration of active metal species driven by non-thermal microwave-fuse is worthy of noting as an applicable strategy to acquire efficient multi-component solid interface for advanced heterogeneous catalysis as well as the current system for preferential CO oxidation in H2.