CO Oxidation Promoted by Gold Atoms Loosely Attached in AuFeO3(-) Cluster Anions.
Time-of-flight mass spectrometry experiment shows that upon the interactions with carbon monoxide, the mass-selected AuFeO3(-) oxide cluster anions can evaporate neutral gold atoms in a hexapole collision cell and oxidize CO into CO2 in an ion trap reactor. The computational studies identify that the gold atom is loosely attached in the AuFeO3(-) cluster, and the different reaction channels can be attributed to different cluster velocities. The structure of the AuFeO3(-) cluster is very flexible, and the approach of CO induces significant geometrical and electronic structure changes of AuFeO3(-), which facilitates the exposure of the positively charged gold atom to trap and oxidize CO. The CO oxidation by the AuFeO3(-) cluster follows the Au-assisted Mars-van Krevelen mechanism, in which the direct participation of the surface lattice oxygen (O(2-)) is proposed.
†Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|‡University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China.
Zhen
Z
Yuan
†Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
Xiao-Na
XN
Li
†Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
Sheng-Gui
SG
He
CO oxidation; atomic clusters; density functional calculations; gold; mass spectrometry