Sacrificial Sucrose Strategy Achieved Enhancement of Ammonia Synthesis Activity over a Ceria-Supported Ru Catalyst

CeO2-supported Ru catalysts have high hope for ammonia synthesis; however, their industrial application in ammonia synthesis is finite by the presence of the strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) or Ru encapsulation. Herein, a sacrificial sucrose strategy was adopted to prepare a CeO2-supported Ru catalyst without invoking SMSI or Ru encapsulation. Owing to the improvement of the proportion of Ru-0, Ce3+ concentration, number of the exposed ruthenium species, and Ru-O-Ce bonds, the catalyst obtained by sacrificial sucrose strategy can adsorb lots of hydrogen species, and a higher proportion of H species desorb by way of forming H-2, leading to the increase of ammonia synthesis activity is by 43% in comparison with the catalyst without sucrose sacrifice.

Automated summary

In this study, a sacrificial sucrose strategy was adopted to prepare a CeO2-supported Ru catalyst, which successfully avoided the issues of strong metal-support interaction or Ru encapsulation, leading to an increase in the catalyst's activity.