The
construction of stable active site in nanocatalysts is of great
importance but is a challenge in heterogeneous catalysis. Unexpectedly,
coordination-unsaturated and atomically dispersed copper species were
constructed and stabilized in a sintered copper–ceria catalyst
through air-calcination at 800 °C. This sintered copper–ceria
catalyst showed a very high activity for CO oxidation with a CO consumption
rate of 6100 μmolCO·gCu
–1·s–1 at 120 °C, which was at least 20
times that of other reported copper catalysts. Additionally, the excellent
long-term stability was unbroken under the harsh cycled reaction conditions.
Based on a comprehensive structural characterization and mechanistic
study, the copper atoms with unsaturated coordination in the form
of Cu1O3 were identified to be the sole active
site, at which both CO and O2 molecules were activated,
thus inducing remarkable CO oxidation activity with a very low copper
loading (1 wt %).