A Sacrificial Coating Strategy Toward Enhancement of Metal-Support Interaction for Ultrastable Au Nanocatalysts

Supported gold (Au) nanocatalysts hold great promise for heterogeneous catalysis; however, their practical application is greatly hampered by poor thermodynamic stability. Herein, a general synthetic strategy is reported where discrete metal nanoparticles are made resistant to sintering, preserving their catalytic activities in high-temperature oxidation processes. Taking advantage of the unique coating chemistry of dopamine, sacrificial carbon layers are constructed on the material surface, stabilizing the supported catalyst. Upon annealing at high temperature under an inert atmosphere, the interactions between support and metal nanoparticle are dramatically enhanced, while the sacrificial carbon layers can be subsequently removed through oxidative calcination in air. Owing to the improved metal-support contact and strengthened electronic interactions, the resulting Au nanocatalysts are resistant to sintering and exhibit excellent durability for catalytic combustion of propylene at elevated temperatures. Moreover, the facile synthetic strategy can be extended to the stabilization of other supported catalysts on a broad range of supports, providing a general approach to enhancing the thermal stability and sintering resistance of supported nanocatalysts.