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Controlling Reaction Selectivity through the Surface Termination of Perovskite Catalysts
Author(s) -
PoloGarzon Felipe,
Yang ShiZe,
Fung Victor,
Foo Guo Shiou,
Bickel Elizabeth E.,
Chisholm Matthew F.,
Jiang Deen,
Wu Zili
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201704656
Subject(s) - selectivity , catalysis , perovskite (structure) , materials science , etching (microfabrication) , density functional theory , chemical engineering , inorganic chemistry , chemistry , nanotechnology , computational chemistry , organic chemistry , layer (electronics) , engineering
Although perovskites have been widely used in catalysis, tuning of their surface termination to control reaction selectivity has not been well established. In this study, we employed multiple surface‐sensitive techniques to characterize the surface termination (one aspect of surface reconstruction) of SrTiO 3 (STO) after thermal pretreatment (Sr enrichment) and chemical etching (Ti enrichment). We show, by using the conversion of 2‐propanol as a probe reaction, that the surface termination of STO can be controlled to greatly tune catalytic acid/base properties and consequently the reaction selectivity over a wide range, which is not possible with single‐metal oxides, either SrO or TiO 2 . Density functional theory (DFT) calculations explain well the selectivity tuning and reaction mechanism on STO with different surface termination. Similar catalytic tunability was also observed on BaZrO 3 , thus highlighting the generality of the findings of this study.