Identifying the Active Phase of RuO2 in the Catalytic CO Oxidation Reaction, Employing Operando CO Infrared Spectroscopy and Online Mass Spectrometry

Operando diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) is combined with online mass spectrometry (MS) to help to resolve a long-standing debate concerning the active phase of RuO2 supported on rutile TiO2 (RuO2@TiO2) during the CO oxidation reaction. DRIFTS has been demonstrated to serve as a versatile probe molecule to elucidate the active phase of RuO2@TiO2 under various reaction conditions. Fully oxidized and fully reduced catalysts serve to provide reference DRIFT spectra, based on which the operando CO spectra acquired during CO oxidation under various reaction conditions are interpreted. Partially reduced RuO2@TiO2 was identified as the most active catalyst in the CO oxidation reaction. This is independent of the reaction conditions being reducing or oxidizing and whether the starting catalyst is the fully oxidized RuO2@TiO2 or the partially reduced RuO2@TiO2.