Support Effect of Catalytic Activity on 3-dimensional Au/Metal Oxide Nanocatalysts Synthesized by Arc Plasma Deposition

Strong metal-support interaction effect is an important issue in determining the catalytic activity for heterogeneous catalysis. In this work, we report the catalytic activity of $Au/TiO_2$, $Au/Al_2O_3$, and $Au/Al_2O_3-CeO_2$ nanocatalysts under CO oxidation fabricated by arc plasma deposition (APD), which is a facile dry process with no organic materials involved. These catalytic materials were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and $N_2$-physisorption. Catalytic activity of the materials has measured by CO oxidation using oxygen, as a model reaction, in a micro-flow reactor at atmospheric pressure. Using APD, the catalyst nanoparticles were well dispersed on metal oxide powder with an average particle size (3~10 nm). As for catalytic reactivity, the result shows $Au/Al_2O_3-CeO_2$ nanocatalyst has the highest catalytic activity among three samples in CO oxidation, and $Au/TiO_2$, and $Au/Al_2O_3$ in sequence. We discuss the effects of structure and metal-oxide interactions of the catalysts on catalytic activity.