Identification
of size effects at an atomic level is essential
for designing high-performance metal-based catalysts. Here, the performance
of a series of FeO
x
-supported Pt catalysts
with Pt as nanoparticles (Pt-NP) or single atoms (Pt-SAC) are compared
for the low-temperature water-gas shift (WGS) reaction. A variety
of characterization methods such as adsorption microcalorimetry, H2-TPR, in situ DRIFTS, and transient analysis of product tests
were used to demonstrate that Pt nanoparticles exhibit much higher
adsorption strength of CO; the adsorbed CO reacts with the OH groups,
which are generated from activated H2O, to form intermediate
formates that subsequently decompose to produce CO2 and
H2 simultaneously. On the other hand, Pt single atoms promote
the formation of oxygen vacancies on FeO
x
which dissociate H2O to H2 and adsorbed O
that then combines with the weakly adsorbed CO on these Pt sites to
produce CO2. The activation energy for the WGS reaction
decreases with the downsizing of Pt species, and Pt-SAC possesses
the lowest value of 33 kJ/mol. As a result, Pt-SAC exhibits 1 order
of magnitude higher specific activity in comparison to Pt-NP. With
a loading of only 0.05 wt % the Pt-SAC can achieve ∼65% CO
conversion at 300 °C, representing one of the most active catalysts
reported so far.