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Identification of Active Sites over Fe2O3‑Based Architecture: The Promotion Effect of H2SO4 Erosion Synthetic Protocol
journal contribution
posted on 2018-05-30, 00:00 authored by Jie Zhang, Zhiwei Huang, Yueyao Du, Francisco Sánchez-Ochoa, Xiaomin Wu, Guohua JingKnowledge of tuning
the composition and structure of the active sites is crucial for understanding
and improving the properties of catalysts. Here, we report that selective
catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx using
ammonia over Fe2O3 nanoparticle is boosted by
a nanometric Fe2(SO4)3 shell, which
is generated via a facile H2SO4 erosion synthetic
protocol. The Fe2O3–H2SO4 erosion sample consists of a well-defined hexagon shape Fe2O3 core and a 1 nm thin Fe2(SO4)3 shell formed by H2SO4 erosion
as evidenced by transmission electron microscopy measurements. A set
of control experiments show that pure Fe2O3 or
Fe2(SO4)3 alone cannot fully account
for the high catalytic performance of the Fe2O3–H2SO4 erosion sample. By combining
electron microscopy, activity measurement, surface area titration,
and temperature-programmed desorption and surface reaction, we show
that reactants are activated within a zone at the surface interface
of Fe2O3 and Fe2(SO4)3 on the as-prepared Fe2O3–H2SO4 erosion sample.