Enhancing Preferential CO Oxidation of Cu–Ce/γ-Al 2 O 3 Catalyst Through an Acid-Modified Method

作者：Shan Li, Huixia Li, Taotao Huang, Xuebo Chen · 发表于：Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1021/acs.iecr.5c01091 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Catalytic Processes in Materials Science、Catalysis and Oxidation Reactions、Nanomaterials for catalytic reactions

The development of efficient Cu–Ce catalysts for selective CO oxidation in hydrogen streams (CO-PROX) remains a critical challenge for hydrogen purification technologies. Herein, we report an acid-modified Cu–Ce/γ-Al 2 O 3 catalyst synthesized through HCl-assisted wet impregnation and thermal aging, demonstrating exceptional low-temperature CO-PROX performance. The optimized CuCe 0.8 (Cl) 0.2 /γ-Al 2 O 3 catalyst achieves superior CO conversion below 160 °C and maintains stable activity for 50 h at 160 °C. Mechanistic studies reveal that HCl modification induces dual enhancement effects: (1) increased Cu + species density enhances CO adsorption capacity; (2) elevated Ce 3+ concentration promotes oxygen vacancy formation for efficient O 2 activation. Complementary characterization demonstrates that the acid treatment optimizes the active species dispersion and creates hierarchical pore structures in the γ-Al 2 O 3 support, which facilitates reactant accessibility and stabilizes catalytic intermediates. The reaction mechanism involves synergistic cooperation between Cu + -mediated CO adsorption, oxygen vacancy-assisted O 2 activation, and hydroxyl-assisted bicarbonate intermediate formation on the alumina support. This work establishes an effective acid-modification strategy for designing durable CO-PROX catalysts, advancing the development of a practical hydrogen purification system.