Unravelling the mechanism of CO2 activation over low-loaded Cu/CeO2(111) catalysts using operando and transient spectroscopies

Abstract

Using operando Raman and UV-vis spectroscopy as well as transient IR spectroscopy, low-loaded Cu/CeO2(111) catalysts were investigated with respect to their redox behavior and the importance of adsorbates for the reverse water-gas shift (rWGS) reaction. Here it is shown that of two possible mechanisms the redox mechanism is predominant over an associative one.