Low-temperature CO oxidation on CuO-CeO2-ZrO2 catalysts prepared by a facile surfactant-assisted grinding method.

• CuO-Ce x Zr 1-x O y are prepared via a facile surfactant-assisted grinding method. • CuO-Ce 0.7 Zr 0.3 O y exhibits the highest activity and moisture resistance. • Activity is related to contents of highly dispersed CuO and oxygen vacancies. • CO oxidation catalyzed by CuO-Ce x Zr 1-x O y mainly follows the L-H mechanism. • CuO-Ce 0.7 Zr 0.3 O y exhibits excellent stability and adaptability to space velocity. A series of CuO-Ce x Zr 1-x O y mixed oxides with different Ce contents were prepared via a facile surfactant-assisted grinding method, and their catalytic activity for CO oxidation under dry or moist atmosphere were investigated. The results indicate that the catalyst with a Ce content (x) of 0.7 in Ce x Zr 1-x O y (CuCe 0.7 Zr 0.3) exhibited the best activity under both dry and moist atmospheres, with the temperatures corresponding to CO conversion of 90 % (T 90) at a space velocity of 18000 mL/(g cat · h) being 90 and 120 °C, respectively. Combing with the physicochemical properties of the catalysts obtained by multiple characterization techniques such as ICP-OES, XRD, Raman, N 2 sorption, XPS, in situ DRIFTs, H 2 -TPR, O 2 -TPD and CO-TPD, the high activity of the CuCe 0.7 Zr 0.3 catalyst can be mainly attributed to the existence of large amounts of highly dispersed CuO x species and oxygen defect sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]