In recent years, transportation-related air pollution has escalated into a global concern, necessitating the development of a three-way catalyst (TWC) technology to address harmful emissions. However, the efficiency of TWC's performance in mitigating these emissions has been hindered because of limited mass transfer efficiency within their structures. Thus, this study attempted to overcome the existing issue by synthesizing a series of macroporous TWC particles exhibiting various macropore sizes via a template-assisted spray process, aiming to achieve optimal mass transfer efficiency and catalytic performance. The synthesis incorporated various template particles (size of 67-381 nm) to obtain various macroporous structures. Thereafter, these macroporous particles were assessed for their carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation performance, revealing a substantial influence of the macropore size on the catalytic performance of TWC structures. Interestingly, among the investigated samples, those containing the smallest and largest macropores demonstrated the highest CO oxidation performances. Based on these results, a plausible reactant diffusion mechanism was proposed to explain the effect of the macropore size on the diffusion efficiency within the macroporous structures. This work may have significant implications in optimizing the macroporous structure to enhance catalytic performance in the gas purification process.
Keywords: CO oxidation; catalytic performance; macropore size; mass transfer; three-way catalyst.