High or Low Coordination: Insight into the Active Site of Pt Nanoparticles toward CO Oxidation

The catalytic activity of metal nanoparticles (NPs) is highly dependent on the coordination environment of the surface sites. Understanding the role of different sites in reactions is essential for gaining insights into catalytic activity and the precise design of catalysts. Herein, we used first-principles calculation-based kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to investigate correlations between different sites on Pt NPs in CO oxidation reactions. Low-coordinated (LC) sites favor the CO adsorption and reaction, whereas the oxygen mainly adsorbs on high-coordinated (HC) sites and diffuses to LC sites for reaction at low temperatures. Compared with step-dominated and terrace-dominated structures, the step-terrace structures exhibit higher activities. This reveals that the catalytic performance is not simply determined by the sites where the reaction occurs but is dramatically affected by the kinetic synergies between different sites. A proper way to optimize the activity of Pt catalysts is to balance the LC and HC sites.