Catalytic decomposition of N2O on inorganic oxides: effect of doping with Au nanoparticlesCatalytic decomposition of N2O on inorganic oxides: effect of doping with Au nanoparticles Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2018-10-092017enThe aim of this work is to explore the influence of the support (MxOy: Al2O3, CeO2, Fe2O3, TiO2 and ZnO) on the physicochemical characteristics and the N2O decomposition (deN2O) performance of supported gold nanoparticles (Au/MxOy). Both the bare oxides and the Au/oxide catalysts were characterized by several methods (BET, XRD, SEM, HR-TEM, XPS and H2-TPR) and comparatively evaluated in order to gain insight into the structure-property relationships. A close correlation between the catalytic performance and the redox properties (reducibility and oxygen mobility) of oxide carriers was revealed on the basis of a redox type mechanism, resulting in the following deN2O activity order: Fe2O3 >> CeO2 > ZnO > TiO2 > Al2O3. In contrast, no significant effect of textural/structural characteristics on the deN2O performance was found. Addition of gold to the oxides facilitates the surface oxygen reduction and, consequently, the deN2O performance, without, however, affecting the activity order. When oxygen is in excess in the feed stream (N2O + O2) a slight inhibition was observed for all samples, due to the competitive adsorption of both reactants on the catalyst surface. On the basis of a kinetic analysis the superior performance of Fe2O3-based samples can be attributed to the optimum compromise between the activation energy and the pre-exponential factor under the present conditions.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Molecular Catalysis43678-89 Carabineiro, Sónia Alexandra Correia Papista Eleni Marnellos, Georges E Tavares Pedro Bandeira Maldonado-Hódar, Francisco J Konsolakis Michail Κονσολακης Μιχαηλ Elsevier Gold nanoparticles Metal-support interactions N2O decomposition Oxide supports