Tackling limitations of future relevant thermo-chemical reactions by exploiting the dynamic surface behaviour of complex mixed metal oxides

Introduction

For a sustainable future, highly active, selective, and stable catalysts are of utmost importance for the chemical industry. The conventional steady-state operation of catalytic reactors reaches its limit.

Project Overview

This project opens up new perspectives on the opportunities of tailored oxide surfaces. We aim to develop a dynamic responsive catalyst (DRC) that changes its surface structure depending on the oxidizing or reductive character of the reactant mixture.

Methodology

Combined with oscillation between reducing and oxidizing atmosphere in forced periodic operation (FPO), our concept opens unprecedented opportunities for surface engineering:

1. At low reduction degree, the DRC-FPO concept allows activation and net stabilization of active/selective metastable sites that are thermodynamically not accessible under conventional steady-state operation.
2. Furthermore, at high reduction degrees, the DRC-FPO concept enables reversible formation of highly dispersed active nanoparticles out of the mixed metal oxide host structure.
3. Upon oxidative treatment, the atoms of nanoparticles can reintegrate into the host structure at ultimate dispersion.

This is a unique way to overcome irreversible catalyst deactivation by nanoparticle sintering.

Expertise and Goals

With our expertise on mixed metal oxides based on spinels and perovskites, we will enable the DRC functionality by compositional tailoring and resolve general trends.

To leverage the full potential of this approach, we aim to explore all relevant effects in four future relevant demonstrator reactions at low and high temperatures as well as in oxidizing and reductive environments through a combination of synthetic, analytic, reaction engineering, and operando characterization methodologies.

Conclusion

The acquired basic knowledge and proven feasibility of the DRC-FPO concept opens a paradigm shift in the operation of catalysts. It generates groundbreaking ways to create defined active surface sites and avoid catalyst deactivation.