Methanol oxidation on a copper catalyst investigated using in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

The surface and near-surface region of an active catalyst and the adjacent gas-phase reactants were investigated simultaneously under reaction conditions using in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This investigation of methanol oxidation on a copper catalyst showed that there was a linear correlation between the catalytic activity of the sample and the presence of a sub-surface oxygen species that can only be observed in situ. The concentration profile of the sub-surface oxygen species within the first few nanometers below the surface was determined using photon energy-dependent depth-profiling. The chemical composition of the surface and the near-surface region varied strongly with the oxygen-tomethanol ratio in the reactant stream. The experiments show that the pure metal is not an active catalyst for the methanol oxidation reaction, but that a certain amount of oxygen has to be present in the sub-surface region to activate the catalytic reaction. Oxide formation was found to be detrimental to formaldehyde production. Our results demonstrate also that for an understanding of heterogeneous catalysts a characterization of the surface alone may not be sufficient, and that sub-surface characterization is essential.