Novel highly efficient alumina-supported cobalt nitride catalyst for preferential CO oxidation at high temperatures

Novel alumina-supported cobalt nitride catalysts with Co loading ranging from 1 to 10 wt% prepared by NH3-temperature-programmed reaction were investigated as potential catalysts for preferential CO oxidation (PROX) in excess H2 at high temperatures. The formation of the Co4N phase was confirmed by a combination of XRD and XPS, and the Co 2p binding energies of Co4N reported previously were corrected to 798.2 ± 0.2 and 782.5 ± 0.2 eV. We observed that the catalytic activities of these nitrided Co/γ-Al2O3 catalysts were greatly related to their Co loadings. The nitrided 3 wt% Co/γ-Al2O3 catalyst showed the best PROX performance in temperature range of 200–220 °C, which was quite different from Co oxide precursor but was similar to Pt-group metals.