AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS-TuM

Paper SS-TuM9
Low-temperature Dissociation of CO2 on Ni/CeO2/Ru(0001) Model Catalyst

Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 10:40 am, Room 21

Session: Surface Reactivity of Oxides
Presenter: D.D. Kong, University of Science and Technology of China
Authors: D.D. Kong, University of Science and Technology of China
K.-H. Ernst, EMPA, Switzerland
J.F. Zhu, University of Science and Technology of China
Correspondent: Click to Email
Model Ni/CeO2 (111) catalysts were prepared by depositing nickel atoms onto well-ordered cerium oxide films grown on Ru(0001) and were investigated using photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). It is found that the fully oxidized CeO2 thin films are slightly reduced to CeO1.97 after 0.2 ML Ni deposition. When CO2 is exposed to the surface of clean CeO2(111) film at 97 K, the physisorbed linear molecular CO2 and carboxylate species are observed. However, on the CeO2(111) surface covered with 0.6 ML Ni, CO2 immediately dissociates upon adsorption at 97 K, leading to the formation of Ni-CO adsorbates and partial oxidation of Ni nanoparticles. This dissociation activation of CO2 is inhibited when Ni nanoparticles on CeO2 are pre-oxidzied. In contrast to the results reported for CO2 adsorption on Ni single-crystals where the dissociation temperature was found to be higher than 240 K, the much lower dissociation temperature (~97 K) for CO2 on Ni nanoparticles supported on CeO2(111) suggests that the Ni/CeO2 catalyst exhibits high activity toward CO2 activation.