Doping, selection and composition spreads, a combinatorial strategy for the discovery of new mixed oxide catalysts for low-temperature CO oxidation

Abstract

The poor activity of Co and Ni oxide for CO oxidation has been drastically improved by combinatorial methods. Doping, selection and composition spreads were the strategy applied to the catalyst development. Catalyst libraries have been prepared by sol–gel processes with the help of a pipetting robot and the library design software Plattenbau . The catalytic activity of the materials on the library has been evaluated with the help of emissivity-corrected infrared thermography. A total of 880 materials placed on five libraries have been tested. Two catalysts highly active for CO oxidation at room temperature have been obtained, Al 1 Mn 6.7 Co and Ag 3.3 Mn 34.1 Co 1.7 Ni. Their activity has been confirmed by bulk synthesis and testing in a conventional fixed-bed reactor. The new catalysts compared favourably to Hopcalite, the industrial reference catalyst. Under standard conditions (25 °C, 1 vol.% CO in air) both multi-component oxides showed a higher CO conversion ( X CO > 90%) after 1 h than the Hopcalite ( X CO = 75%).