Microwave non-thermal fusion of MOFs derived Cu-O-Ce interface for boosting CO preferential oxidation

Microwave guided the fusion of MOFs derivatives with Cu-O-Ce active surface by the non-thermal effect, and greatly reduced the synthesis temperature of the optimal CuO/CeO 2 catalyst for 100% CO conversion in H 2 stream. • Non-thermal microwave fuse facilitate the formation of evenly-distributed Cu-O-Ce interface. • Unique self-migration of metal species exists during microwave fuse of Cu-MOF and Ce-MOF mixture. • In-situ Raman and in-situ DRIFTs reveal the mechanism of synergistic redox enhancement by microwave. • Microwave pyrolysis fusion provides Cu2+-Ovac-Ce3+ to promote CO preferential oxidation. • The optimal activity derived temperature is reduced by 200 ℃ via microwave pyrolysis. Engineering of uniformly-distributed and well-combined multi-component interface is sustainable but challenging for acquiring heterogeneous catalysts. Herein, the low energy consumption of microwave-fuse preparation is imposed on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) namely Cu-MOF and Ce-MOF to manipulate Cu-O-Ce interface for preferential CO oxidation in H 2 -rich stream. By comprehensive characterizations, it is discovered that a unique spontaneous-migration of active Cu species onto Ce matrix will be driven by the microwave-fuse to form evenly-distributed and compactly-integrated Cu-O-Ce interface at low temperature, which is 200 ℃ lower than that required by traditional pyrolysis, clearly indicating the unique non-thermal function of microwave processing on fine-tuning oxide composite interface. In-situ Raman and in-situ DRIFTs further elucidate the improvement on synergistic redox feature along Cu 2+ -O vac -Ce 3+ , leading to 100% conversion of CO at 75-170 ℃. These findings suggest that the unique self-migration of active metal species driven by non-thermal microwave-fuse is worthy of noting as an applicable strategy to acquire efficient multi-component solid interface for advanced heterogeneous catalysis as well as the current system for preferential CO oxidation in H 2 .