Bifunctional CO oxidation over Mn-mullite anchored Pt sub-nanoclusters via atomic layer deposition† †Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Catalyst preparation and characterization details, supplemental figures and tables. See DOI: 10.1039/c7sc05486f

Highly dispersed Pt sub-nanoclusters are anchored on SmMn2O5 mullites via atomic layer deposition, and show excellent low-temperature CO oxidation activity.
CO oxidation is a widely used model system for understanding fundamental aspects of heterogeneous catalysis. While platinum (Pt) continues to be a reference material for CO oxidation catalysis, poisoning of Pt catalysts presents a critical issue that blocks reaction sites and impedes subsequent reaction steps. Fabrication of CO poison-free Pt catalysts remains a great challenge due to its CO-philic nature. Herein, we report a Pt based catalyst to effectively tackle CO poisoning by tightly anchoring Pt sub-nanoclusters onto Mn-mullite oxide (SmMn2O5) via atomic layer deposition. Superior CO oxidation activity has been observed with a significantly lowered light-off temperature and apparent activation energy. In situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy analysis, oxygen isotope experiments and density functional theory calculations confirm that the low-temperature activity originates from active oxygen atom sources at the bifunctional interface structure.