Cobalt Phthalocyanine Supported on Mesoporous CeO₂ as an Active Molecular Catalyst for CO Oxidation

Heterogenization of biomolecules by immobilizing on a metal oxide support could greatly enhance their catalytic activity and stability, but their interactions are generally weak. Herein, cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) molecules were firmly anchored on a Ce-based metal-organic framework (Ce-BTC) due to π-π stacking interaction between CoPc and aromatic frameworks of the BTC linker, which was followed by a calcination treatment to convert Ce-BTC to mesoporous CeO₂ and realize a molecular-level dispersion of CoPc on the surface of CeO₂. Various characterization results confirm the successful fabrication of molecular-based CoPc/CeO₂ catalysts which exhibited good CO oxidation performance. Importantly, we found that the mixing manner of Ce-BTC and CoPc remarkably affects the physicochemical properties which then determined the catalytic performance of the resultant CoPc/CeO₂ catalysts. In contrast, the direct physical mixing of CoPc and CeO₂ led to poor performance toward CO oxidation, manifesting that the Ce-BTC-mediated CoPc loading strategy is promising for the heterogenization of catalytic biomolecules.