Smart Pd Catalyst with Improved Thermal Stability Supported on High-Surface-Area LaFeO₃ Prepared by Atomic Layer...

The concept of self-regenerating or "smart" catalysts, developed to mitigate the problem of supported metal particle coarsening in high-temperature applications, involves redispersing large metal particles by incorporating them into a perovskite-structured support under oxidizing conditions and then exsolving them as small metal particles under reducing conditions. Unfortunately, the redispersion process does not appear to work in practice because the surface areas of the perovskite supports are too low and the diffusion lengths for the metal ions within the bulk perovskite too short. Here, we demonstrate reversible activation upon redox cycling for CH₄ oxidation and CO oxidation on Pd supported on high-surface-area LaFeO₃, prepared as a thin conformal coating on a porous MgAl₂O₄ support using atomic layer deposition. The LaFeO₃ film, less than 1.5 nm thick, was shown to be initially stable to at least 900 °C. The activated catalysts exhibit stable catalytic performance for methane oxidation after high-temperature treatment.