Revealing pretreatment-induced structure evolution of LaFeO₃ supported Au catalyst for CO oxidation reaction

Heterogeneous catalysts play a pivotal role in the chemical industry. Pretreatments in reducing or oxidizing atmospheres have been widely utilized to alter the structure of heterogeneous catalysts, with the aim of enhancing their catalytic performance. However, the pretreatment atmosphere can, at times, trigger unexpected structural changes in catalysts and even lead to catalytic degradation. Hence, the selection of an appropriate pretreatment atmosphere for heterogeneous catalysts is critical and requires a clear understanding of their corresponding dynamic evolution to improve their performance in a targeted manner, particularly relying on in situ observation. In this study, a promising CO oxidation catalyst, LaFeO₃ supported Au nanoparticles (Au/LFO) is selected, and the influence of the pretreatments in different atmospheres on Au/LFO is explored by using in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculation. Our findings reveal that the commonly used reducing pretreatment for noble-metal catalysts triggered strong metal-support interactions in Au/LFO, suppressing its CO adsorption performance. In contrast, the oxidizing pretreatment preserves the metallic Au and the metal/support interface as efficient active sites to promote CO oxidation activity and stability simultaneously. This work discloses the structure evolution at the interface between noble metals and perovskite oxide supports in response to different gas phase treatments and clarifies their structure-property relationships.