Controlling Reaction Selectivity through the Surface Termination of Perovskite Catalysts
Felipe Polo‐Garzona b, Shize Yangc d, Victor Funge f, Guo Shiou Fooa b, Elizabeth E. Bickelg h, Matthew F. Chisholmc d, De‐en Jiange f, Zili Wua b✉
- aChemical Sciences Division and Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge TN 37831 USA
- bChemical Sciences Division and Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831 USA
- cMaterials Science and Technology Division Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge TN 37831 USA
- dMaterials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831 USA
- eDepartment of Chemistry University of California Riverside CA 92521 USA
- fDepartment of Chemistry, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521 USA
- gDepartment of Chemical Engineering Tennessee Technological University Cookeville TN 38505 USA
- hDepartment of Chemical Engineering, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN, 38505 USA
- ✉Corresponding author
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Abstract
Abstract 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.