Facile strategy to construct porous CuO/CeO2 nanospheres with enhanced catalytic activity toward CO catalytic oxidation at low temperature

Porous CuO/CeO2 nanospheres are synthesized by a facile route, which involves a template-free solvothermal method to obtain porous CeO2 nanospheres, followed by a deposition-precipitation (DP) method of as-prepared porous CeO2 nanospheres and Cu(NO3)(2) solution. XRD, TEM, SEM, ICP-MS, and EDS elemental mapping confirm that the obtained porous CuO/CeO2 nanospheres are composed of CeO2 nanospheres decorated with small particle size and well-dispersed CuO nanoparticles (NPs). Meanwhile, the activity of CO catalytic oxidation study is tested; porous CuO/CeO2 nanospheres exhibit signally higher activity than undecorated CeO2 nanospheres and solid CuO/CeO2 nanospheres at low temperature. The improved performance of porous CuO/CeO2 nanospheres is possibly ascribed to the synergetic effect and strong interaction between porous CeO2 nanospheres and decorated CuO NPs