title: Support nanostructure boosts oxygen transfer to catalytically active platinum nanoparticles.
abstract: Interactions of metal particles with oxide supports can radically enhance the performance of supported catalysts. At the microscopic level, the details of such metal-oxide interactions usually remain obscure. This study identifies two types of oxidative metal-oxide interaction on well-defined models of technologically important Pt-ceria catalysts: (1) electron transfer from the Pt nanoparticle to the support, and (2) oxygen transfer from ceria to Pt. The electron transfer is favourable on ceria supports, irrespective of their morphology. Remarkably, the oxygen transfer is shown to require the presence of nanostructured ceria in close contact with Pt and, thus, is inherently a nanoscale effect. Our findings enable us to detail the formation mechanism of the catalytically indispensable Pt-O species on ceria and to elucidate the extraordinary structure-activity dependence of ceria-based catalysts in general.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Chemistry, University of Sofia, 1126 Sofia, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: Georgi N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Vayssilov
authors.forename: Yaroslava
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lykhach
authors.forename: Annapaola
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Migani
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Staudt
authors.forename: Galina P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Petrova
authors.forename: Nataliya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tsud
authors.forename: Tomáš
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Skála
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bruix
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Illas
authors.forename: Kevin C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Prince
authors.forename: Vladimír
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Matolín
authors.forename: Konstantin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Neyman
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Libuda