Atomically Dispersed Ru/Feox Catalyst with High Performance for Water Gas Shift Reaction

Abstract

Single-atom catalysts can effectively mitigate the negative impact of methanation side reactions on catalyst stability in water gas shift reactions by optimizing local atomic configurations to achieve maximum atom utilization efficiency and enhanced catalytic performance. This study prepared Ru/FeOx SACs and Ru/FeOx NPCs by co-precipitation method. The presence of monoatomic Ru was confirmed by AC-HAADF-STEM and DRIFTS. The Ru single-atom exhibited a weak adsorption property for CO, effectively inhibiting the methanation. Meanwhile, oxygen vacancies promoted the dissociation of H2O in the deceleration step, further enhancing the catalysts' activity. The activation energy of 0.05Ru/FeOx catalyst was significantly reduced to 71.00 kJ/mol, while the activity was 6.4 times higher than that of 1.31RuNP/FeOx catalyst. This study provides insight into the critical role of single-atom active sites in improving the activity and stability of the WGS reaction and provides an essential theoretical basis for the design and optimization of highly efficient catalysts.

Keywords: Ru/FeOx catalyst, Ru single-atom, nanoparticles, water gas shift reaction