Strong Local Coordination Structure Effects on Subnanometer PtOx Clusters over CeO2 Nanowires Probed by Low-Temperature CO Oxidation

A fundamental understanding of the structural effects of supported metal catalysts at the molecular level is extremely important for developing high-performance catalysts that are widely used in industry, which is still a longstanding attractive but challenging topic in multidisciplinary fields. In this work, we report the strong effects of local coordination structures on the catalytic activity of subnanometric PtOx clusters over CeO2 nanowires in low-temperature CO oxidation as a probe reaction. Atoms and subnanometric clusters of Pt were deposited to form the coordination structure of PtOx on the well-defined CeO2 nanowires with mainly exposed (110) facets. The reactivity of active sites and the variation of the local coordination structures of the PtOx sites were deeply investigated with in situ spectroscopic experiments, assisted by density functional theory simulations. According to our observation, although the highly dispersed Pt sites at the subnanometric scale could provide increased accessible ...