Co-Cu Nanoparticles : Synthesis by Galvanic Replacement and Phase Rearrangement during Catalytic Activation

The control of the phase distribution in multicomponent nanomaterials is critical to optimize their catalytic performance. In this direction, while impressive advances have been achieved in the past decade in the synthesis of multicomponent nanoparticles and nanocomposites, element rearrangement during catalyst activation has been frequently overseen. Here, we present a facile galvanic replacement-based procedure to synthesize Co@Cu nanoparticles with narrow size and composition distributions. We further characterize their phase arrangement before and after catalytic activation. When oxidized at 350 °C in air to remove organics, Co@Cu core-shell nanostructures oxidize to polycrystalline CuO-CoO nanoparticles with randomly distributed CuO and CoO crystallites. During a posterior reduction treatment in H atmosphere, Cu precipitates in a metallic core and Co migrates to the nanoparticle surface to form Cu@Co core-shell nanostructures. The catalytic behavior of such Cu@Co nanoparticles supported on mesoporous silica was further analyzed toward CO hydrogenation in real working conditions