Strong metal-support interactions between highly dispersed Cu+ species and ceria via mix-MOF pyrolysis toward promoted water-gas shift reaction

The modulation of metal-support interfacial interaction is significant but challenging in the design of high-efficiency and high-stability supported catalysts. Here, we report a synthetic strategy to upgrade Cu-CeO2 interfacial interaction by the pyrolysis of mixed metal-organic framework (MOF) structure. The obtained highly dispersed Cu/CeO2-MOF catalyst via this strategy was used to catalyze water-gas shift reaction (WGSR), which exhibited high activity of 40.5 μmolCO gcat.−1 s−1 at 300 °C and high stability of about 120 h. Based on comprehensive studies of electronic structure, pyrolysis strategy has significant effect on enhancing metal-support interaction and then stabilizing interfacial Cu+ species under reaction conditions. Abundant Cu+ species and generated oxygen vacancies over Cu/CeO2-MOF catalyst played a key role in CO molecule activation and H2O molecule dissociation, respectively. Both collaborated closely and then promoted WGSR catalytic performance in comparison with traditional supported catalysts. This study shall offer a robust approach to harvesting highly dispersed catalysts with finely-tuned metal-support interactions for stabilizing the most interfacial active metal species in diverse heterogeneous catalytic reactions.