Activating low-temperature diesel oxidation by single-atom Pt on TiO2 nanowire array

Son Hoang; Yanbing Guo; Andrew J Binder; Wenxiang Tang; Sibo Wang; Jingyue Jimmy Liu; Huan Tran; Xingxu Lu; Yu Wang; Yong Ding; Eleni A Kyriakidou; Ji Yang; Todd J Toops; Thomas R Pauly; Rampi Ramprasad; Pu-Xian Gao

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-14816-w

Activating low-temperature diesel oxidation by single-atom Pt on TiO₂ nanowire array

Nat Commun. 2020 Feb 26;11(1):1062. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14816-w.

Authors

Son Hoang^#¹, Yanbing Guo^#^{1

2}, Andrew J Binder³, Wenxiang Tang¹, Sibo Wang¹, Jingyue Jimmy Liu⁴, Huan Tran¹, Xingxu Lu¹, Yu Wang⁵, Yong Ding⁶, Eleni A Kyriakidou³, Ji Yang², Todd J Toops³, Thomas R Pauly⁷, Rampi Ramprasad¹, Pu-Xian Gao⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269-3136, USA.
² College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, 430079, Wuhan, China.
³ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37932, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA.
⁵ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 201800, Shanghai, China.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
⁷ Umicore Autocat USA Inc., Auburn Hills, MI, 48326, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269-3136, USA. puxian.gao@uconn.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Supported metal single atom catalysts (SACs) present an emerging class of low-temperature catalysts with high reactivity and selectivity, which, however, face challenges on both durability and practicality. Herein, we report a single-atom Pt catalyst that is strongly anchored on a robust nanowire forest of mesoporous rutile titania grown on the channeled walls of full-size cordierite honeycombs. This Pt SAC exhibits remarkable activity for oxidation of CO and hydrocarbons with 90% conversion at temperatures as low as ~160 ^oC under simulated diesel exhaust conditions while using 5 times less Pt-group metals than a commercial oxidation catalyst. Such an excellent low-temperature performance is sustained over hydrothermal aging and sulfation as a result of highly dispersed and isolated active single Pt ions bonded at the Ti vacancy sites with 5 or 6 oxygen ions on titania nanowire surfaces.