Combinatorial Design of Al₂O₃ Supported Au Catalysts For Preferential CO Oxidation

Multi-component Au/Al₂O₃ catalysts were designed and tested for PROX reaction using holographic research strategy. On the bases of our previous study Pb has been selected as the main modifier of the Au. In addition to Au and Pb the catalysts library contained V, Ba, Ce, Sm, Ag and Cu resulting in multi component catalysts tailored for PROX reaction. After preparation and testing of 173 catalysts within five generations new catalyst compositions with excellent performance have been obtained. Upon using the best catalyst CO could be removed almost completely and the selectivity of oxygen towards the CO oxidation was around 75%. In the course of catalyst library design it has been revealed that the selection of the objective function (OF) has high impact both on the rate of optimization and the performance of catalysts designed. The complex OF was created from two single desirability functions related to CO conversion and oxygen selectivity towards CO oxidation. In order to maintain high optimization rate there was a need to change the weights of single desirability functions in the course of catalyst library design. The results show that Pb, Sm, Cu and Ag are the key modifiers for PROX reaction under experimental conditions applied.