Enhancing room-temperature CO oxidation via encapsulation of bimetallic PtNi clusters within mesoporous silicate-1 catalysts

Abstract

Bimetallic nanocatalysts have demonstrated superior performance in both thermal and electrochemical reactions, primarily due to their ability to modulate the structural and electronic properties of metal ensembles. In this study, we utilize a mesoporous silicate-1 zeolite catalyst incorporating encapsulated PtNi clusters to systematically investigate the structural characteristics and electronic properties, and further correlated them with the catalytic performance for room-temperature CO oxidation. Our findings reveal that the incorporation of Ni atoms significantly enhances oxygen adsorption and dissociation, thereby mitigating CO poisoning effects commonly observed in pure Pt clusters at low temperatures. This synergistic effect enables complete CO conversion at near-ambient temperatures (∼30 °C). These insights elucidate the fundamental mechanisms underlying the synergistic effects of alloy clusters in confined environments and highlight the potential for precise engineering of alloy cluster functionality for targeted catalytic applications.