Gold-silver catalysts: Effect of catalyst structure on the selectivity of glycerol oxidation

The aim of this work is to reveal the bimetallic effect and the real structure of bimetallic AuAg particles and its impact on their catalytic efficiency. Glycerol oxidation has been chosen as reaction, due to the importance of lycerol as a platform molecule but also because of the complex reaction pathway which allows to disclose a correlation between structure and activity/selectivity. In particular, alumina supported bimetallic AuAg catalyst samples have been fabricated by two different preparation methods, namely Solvated Metal Atom Deposition (SMAD) and the Sol Immobilization (SOL), in order to possibly have different structures. To have a detailed characterization of the morphology and surface properties of the catalysts, bimetallic systems have been characterized by transmission electron microscopy techniques, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS).