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Abstract: Au–Cu bimetallic nanoparticles supported on SBA-15 have been reported to be much more active in CO oxidation than the corresponding monometallic counterparts in our previous work. In this work, in situ techniques including XRD, EPR, XANES, and FT-IR were employed to reveal the structural changes of the Au–Cu bimetallic particles during different pretreatment and reaction conditions, and to clarify the essence of the synergistic effect between gold and copper. The results showed that gold remained as Au0 in any treatment conditions, while copper was very sensitive to the treatment temperature and atmosphere. The freshly reduced catalyst was a mixture of Au3Cu1 intermetallic phase and Cu2O amorphous phase. In CO oxidation, the Au3Cu1 intermetallic phase was segregated into a gold core decorated with tiny CuO x patches, and CO adsorbed on Au0 reacted with active oxygen provided by the neighboring CuO x , thus enhancing greatly the activity for CO oxidation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Au–Cu bimetallic catalysts with Au/Cu ratios ranging from 3/1 to 20/1 were prepared on silica gel support by a two-step method. The catalysts were characterized by ICP, XRD and TEM. The results showed that, irrespective of Au/Cu ratios, all the bimetallic nanoparticles had significantly reduced particle sizes (3.0–3.6nm) in comparison with monometallic gold catalysts (5.7nm). Both CO oxidation and PROX reactions were employed to evaluate the catalytic activities of Au–Cu bimetallic catalysts. For CO oxidation, the alloy catalysts show non-monotonic temperature dependence showing a valley in the intermediate temperature range. The catalyst with Au/Cu ratio of 20/1 gave the highest activity at room temperature, but its activity showed the deepest valley with increasing the reaction temperature. On the other hand, the catalyst with Au/Cu ratio of 3/1 exhibited the best performance for PROX reaction. For the Au/Cu ratios investigated, the bimetallic catalysts showed superior performance to monometallic gold catalysts, demonstrating the synergy between gold and copper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]