Effect of oxygen vacancies on direct N2O decomposition over ZrO2-Y2O3 catalysts

The effect of oxygen vacancies on catalytic activity for direct N2O decomposition was demonstrated in Zr1-xYxO2-delta solid solutions with a fluorite-related structure. The fluorite-type structure was formed as samples with a small amount of Y3+ (0.05 <= x <= 0.19) and a large amount of Y3+ (x >= 0.80), leading to the generation of a C-type structure derived from the fluorite-type structure by removing a quarter of the oxide anions. The oxygen vacancies worked as N2O adsorption sites and catalytic active sites, with the highest activity realized by the YO1.5 catalyst with a C-type structure, which contained the largest number of oxygen vacancies in the ZrO2-Y2O3 system.