Cu, Sm co-doping effect on the CO oxidation activity of CeO₂. A combined experimental and density functional study

The co-doping effect of a rare earth (RE) metal and a transition metal (TM) on ceria oxidation catalysis through the evaluation of samarium-copper co-doped catalysts with Ce-Sm-xCu-O (x: 0–20 at.%, Ce/Sm = 1) nominal compositions, is discussed. The CO oxidation reaction was used as a prototype reaction due to its pivotal role in the fuel cell technology. Ce-Sm-20Cu-O catalyst presented a 64% increase in the CO oxidation activity compared to that of pristine ceria. Diffraction and Raman studies proved that the Cu, Sm co-doping induces many defects related to the dopants (Sm, Cu) and the oxygen vacant sites, while the presence of hybrid CuO/Ce-Sm(Cu)-O fluorite/SmO₈ (cubic metastable) phases is the most representative scenario of this oxide microstructure. A size polydispersity of CuO phases was achieved by introducing air cooling during the microwave heating. Cu, Sm atoms were uniformly doped in CeO₂ structure according to the HAADF-STEM studies. These results are in agreement with EDS analysis, where Cu, Sm and Ce are located in all the analyzed areas without any preferential distribution. The XPS studies demonstrated the co-presence of Cu²⁺/Cu¹⁺ and Ce⁴⁺/Ce³⁺ redox couples in agreement with the Bader charge analysis from the ab initio calculations, the latter influencing greatly the oxidation activity of the catalysts. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations shed light on the oxide surface and the underlying mechanism governing the oxidation catalysis taking place. In particular, Cu²⁺ and Sm³⁺ dopants were found to be located in the nearest neighbor (NN) sites of oxygen vacancies. Different oxygen vacancies configurations were studied (single vs. double, surface vs. subsurface), where the single vacancies are more stable on the surface, whereas the double vacancies configurations are more stable on the subsurface. Regarding the Ce³⁺ location, in the presence of single and double oxygen vacancy, the Ce³⁺ ions prefer to be located in the 1^st NN/2^nd NN and 2^nd NN of the first Ce layer, relative to the oxygen vacancy, respectively. The total Density of States (DOS) analysis of the co-doped systems revealed that the dopants induced new surface states inside the ceria band gap, which can accommodate the unpaired electrons of the vacant oxygen sites. These electronic modifications justify the much lower energy of oxygen vacancy formation (E_vf) in both cases, the Sm-doped, and Cu, Sm -doped CeO₂ (1 1 1) geometries. Specifically, the E_vf lowering upon doping was found to be almost two times larger for the Cu adjacent oxygen vacancies (Cu²⁺-□) compared to the Sm ones (Sm³⁺-□), consistent with the CO adsorption trend as the Cu-Sm-CeO₂ (1 1 1) system is energetically more favorable than the Sm-CeO₂ (1 1 1) and pure CeO₂ (1 1 1) surfaces.