Transition metal-promoted oxidation catalysis by fluorite oxides: A study of CO oxidation over CuCeO2

In this paper, The CuCeO₂ system is chosen as a model catalyst and CO oxidation is used as a probe reaction to illustrate the strong interaction and symergism observed when transition metal-promoted fluorite oxides are used as total oxidation catalysts. It was found that only small amounts of copper are sufficient to promote the catalytic activity of CeO₂ by several orders of magnitude, while excessive amounts of copper (Cu/(Cu+Ce) > 0.05) are detrimental to the catalyst thermal and hydrothermal stability. Heating the catalyst to temperatures over 800 °C has a significant impact on the catalytic activity because of crystal growth of cerium oxide, loss of surface oxygen, and copper aggregation.