Influence of catalyst pretreatments on volatile organic compounds oxidation over gold/iron oxide

This paper reports a study on the influence of calcination pretreatments on the catalytic behaviour of the Au/iron oxide system towards the combustion of some representative volatile organic compounds (2-propanol, ethanol, me thanol, acetone and toluene). The catalytic activity of Au/Fe2O3 samples to wards the total oxidation to CO2 has been found to be strongly dependent on the catalyst pretreatment, decreasing on increasing the calcination temper ature. On the basis of characterisation data (XPS, FT-IR, XRD, BET surface area) it has been proposed that the catalytic behaviour is related to the g old state and/or the iron oxide phase. It appears plausible to suggest that the gold oxidation state and/or the particle size play a key role in the c atalytic combustion of volatile organic compounds. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. All rights reserved.