Influence of the microscopic properties of the support on the catalytic activity of Au/ZnO, Au/ZrO2, Au/Fe2O3, Au/Fe2O3–ZnO, Au/Fe2O3–ZrO2 catalysts for the WGS reaction Original Research Article

It has been established that the gold catalysts on well crystallized supports, Au/Fe2O3 and Au/ZrO2, display higher catalytic activity in the water gas shift (WGS) reaction in comparison with the samples on amorphous and not well crystallized supports — Au/ZnO, Au/ZrO2, Au/Fe2O3–ZnO and Au/Fe2O3–ZrO2. It could be concluded that the catalytic activity of the gold/metal oxide catalysts depends strongly not only on the dispersion of the gold particles but also on the state and the structure of the supports.