Abstract

To investigate the surface change of a palladium catalyst during NO conversion reactions, a combined study using a Flat Bed Reactor (FBR), Temperature-Programmed Reduction (TPR) and Atom Probe Tomography (APT) was performed. The Palladium (Pd) catalysts reveal a decreased conversion rate after the first heating cycle of the FBR measurement, which is attributed to the formation of an oxide layer on top of the metallic catalyst surface. The total oxygen content adsorbed on the surface of the catalyst was determined by TPR for catalyst particles that were produced by the spark discharge method. To analyse oxidation microscopically, Pd tips of comparable curvature radius were treated analogously to the FBR processing, analysed in APT and the effective oxide thicknesses were determined. During the 1st heating cycle, the degree of oxidation increases and once the temperature reaches to 350 °C, an irreversible layer of PdO oxide has been formed, 1.5 nm in thickness, with no preference for particular facets of the crystalline Pd surface.

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