An amorphous Au25Zr75 alloy showed a high catalytic activity for hydrogenation of carbon monoxide. Thus, the rate of methanation was 2.3 μmol s−1 g−1 under 6.0 MPa at 523 K, being much higher than that over Au/ZrO2 or ZrO2. It was found that the alloy was oxidized into metallic gold and ZrO2 under the reaction conditions.
An oxidized amorphous Au-Zr alloy showed high selectivities for partial hydrogenation of unsaturated carbonyl compounds to unsaturated alcohols, contrasting with their low catalytic activity in the hydrogenation of unsaturated to saturated alcohols; the active sites of this catalyst are modified gold rather than impurities since the amounts of impurities present were too small (<80 p.p.m.) to show hydrogenation activity.
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