Study of CO and Hydrogen Interactions on Carbon-Supported Pt Nanoparticles by Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry and Operando Diffuse Reflectance FTIR Spectroscopy

CO adsorption on carbon-supported Pt nano-particles under operando conditions was studied by quadru-pole mass spectrometry and diffuse reflectance infrared fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS). The Pt catalyst was also studied by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was shown by HRTEM and XPS that Pt nanoparticles can be fully reduced by H-2 at room temperature instead of by conventional high-temperature treatment. The Pt dispersion was determined by XRD, HRTEM, and CO chemisorption techniques with an excellent agreement among them. The room-temperature H-2/O-2 titration method was also used, but if assuming H/Pt-s = O/Pt-s = 1, it led to the underestimation of the dispersion compared to the other techniques. The existence of adsorption sites inaccessible to H-2 (or O-2) but accessible to CO because of a stronger interaction with Pt was proposed to explain the results. It was also concluded that H/Pt-s was lower than unity (H/Pt-s = 0.72) and, as a major consequence, that Pt nanoparticles with 2.7 nm diameter still have a bulk-like behavior in contrast with what was reported in the literature for 1 nm Pt particles. CO adsorption on Pt/C at 298 K after H-2 treatment was studied by operando DRIFTS. The C-O stretching vibration (nu CO) bands were ascribed to CO adsorbed on Pt surface at (111)-terrace, (100)-terrace, edge, and kink sites in linear and bridge forms. An unexpected nu CO band at 1703 cm(-1) was observed upon CO adsorption and tentatively attributed to CO on surface Pt sites interacting through its oxygen end with the carbon support. It was also shown that the adsorption of CO and H-2 in successive repeated steps was necessary to reach a stable state of the adsorbed CO phase. Possible reconstruction of Pt nanoparticles at room temperature during this process is discussed.