CO adsorption and correlation between CO surface coverage and activity/selectivity of preferential CO oxidation over supported Ag catalyst: an in situ FTIR study

In situ IR measurements for CO adsorption and preferential CO oxidation in H₂-rich gases over Ag/SiO₂ catalysts are presented in this paper. CO adsorbed on the Ag/SiO₂ pretreated with oxygen shows a band centered around 2169 cm^–1, which is assigned to CO linearly bonded to Ag⁺ sites. The amount of adsorbed CO on the silver particles (manifested by an IR band at 2169 cm^–1) depends strongly on the CO partial pressure and the temperature. The steady-state coverage on the Ag surface is shown to be significantly below saturation, and the oxidation of CO with surface oxygen species is probably via a non-competitive Langmuir–Hinshelwood mechanism on the silver catalyst which occurs in the high-rate branch on a surface covered with CO below saturation. A low reactant concentration on the Ag surface indicates that the reaction order with respect to Pco is positive, and the selectivity towards CO₂ decreases with the decrease of Pco. On the other hand, the decrease of the selectivity with the reaction temperature also reflects the higher apparent activation energy for H₂ oxidation than that for CO oxidation.