CuO-based catalysts are usually used for CO oxidation owing to their low cost and excellent catalytic activities. In this study, a series of metal oxide (La2O3, Fe2O3, PrO2, Sm2O3, and MnO2)-doped CuO-based catalysts with mesoporous Ce0.8Zr0.2O2 support were simply prepared by the incipient impregnation method and used directly as catalysts for CO catalytic oxidation. These mesoporous catalysts were systematically characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), N2 physisorption, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersed spectroscopy (EDS) mapping, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and H2 temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR). It was found that the CuO and the dopants were highly dispersed among the mesoporous framework via the incipient impregnation method, and the strong metal framework interaction had been formed. The effects of the types of the dopants and the loading amounts of the dopants on the low-temperature catalytic performances were carefully studied. It was concluded that doped transition metal oxides could regulate the oxygen mobility and reduction ability of catalysts, further improving the catalytic activity. It was also found that the high dispersion of rare earth metal oxides (PrO2, Sm2O3) was able to prevent the thermal sintering and aggregation of CuO-based catalysts during the process of calcination. In addition, their presence also evidently improved the reducibility and significantly reduced the particle size of the CuO active sites for CO oxidation. The results demonstrated that the 15CuO-3Fe2O3/M-Ce80Zr20 catalyst with 3 wt. % of Fe2O3 showed the best low-temperature catalytic activity toward CO oxidation. Overall, the present Fe2O3-doped CuO-based catalysts with mesoporous nanocrystalline Ce0.8Zr0.2O2 solid solution as support were considered a promising series of catalysts for low-temperature CO oxidation.
Low-temperature-processed metal oxide electron transport layers for efficient planar perovskite solar cells