Low Temperature Toluene Oxidation Over Pt Nanoparticles Supported on Yttria Stabilized-Zirconia Holly A. E. Dole • Rima J. Isaifan • Foteini M. Sapountzi • Leonardo Lizarraga • Daniel Aubert • Agnes Princivalle • Philippe Vernoux • Elena A. Baranova Received: 16 May 2013 / Accepted: 7 July 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Toluene oxidation was measured over Pt nanoparticles synthesized using a modified polyol reduc- tion method and deposited on ionically conductive yttria- stabilized zirconia (Pt/YSZ) for three different loadings (1.1, 0.8, 0.4 %), and non-ionically conductive c-alumina (Pt/c-Al 2 O 3 ) as a comparison (metal loading 0.7 %). It was found that nanoparticles supported on YSZ, tested as a support for the first time for toluene oxidation, have greater catalytic activity compared to a conventional c-Al 2 O 3 support in spite of a lower specific area and Pt dispersion. This could be explained by the stronger metal-support interactions between Pt and YSZ due to the ionic con- ductivity of YSZ and presence of oxygen vacancies. Keywords Toluene oxidation  Ionic conductivity  Yttria-stabilized zirconia  Oxygen vacancies  Platinum 1 Introduction A growing global concern about air pollution has sparked the interests of many research groups around the world. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are carbon-based chemicals that are among the pollutants that can cause environmental and health problems. There are several methods that have been demonstrated to control VOC emissions; however, the use of catalytic oxidation is found to be efficient and cost-effective. Many different catalysts and supports have been studied for this purpose, including metal oxides [1], and noble metals supported by metal oxides or carbon [2] or a mixture of metal oxides [3]. Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), a metal oxide support, is known to be an O 2- conductor due to the presence of oxygen vacancies inside its crystallographic structure. This oxide has been extensively studied as a material for oxygen sensors and fuel cells [4]. In the last 25 years, YSZ has received attention as a catalytic support due to its ionic conductivity properties especially in studies of electro- chemical promotion of catalysis (EPOC); also called the non faradaic electrochemical modification of the catalytic activity (NEMCA) effect [5]. Vayenas and collaborators [5] were the first to show that the migration of ionic species from a solid electrolyte to the gas exposed catalyst surface induced by electrical polarizations can improve catalytic performances. Vayenas et al. [6] have described EPOC as an electrically controlled strong metal support interaction (SMSI). In addition, it was found that ionic oxygen species can thermally migrate without any electrical polarization on nanoparticles of metallic catalysts supported on ioni- cally conducting ceramics, such as YSZ [7]. Recently, Masui et al. [8] have shown that the mobility of oxygen in the near surface region at the Pt nanoparticles dispersed on Ce 0.64 Zr 0.15 Bi 0.21 O 0.1895 can promote the oxidation activity H. A. E. Dole  R. J. Isaifan  E. A. Baranova (&) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Center for Catalysis Research and Innovation, University of Ottawa, 161 Louis-Pasteur St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada e-mail: elena.baranova@uottawa.ca F. M. Sapountzi  L. Lizarraga  P. Vernoux Institut de Recherches sur la catalyse et l’environnement de Lyon (IRCELYON), UMR 5256, CNRS, Universite ´ Lyon 1, 2 Avenue Albert Einstein, 69626 Villeurbanne, France D. Aubert  A. Princivalle Laboratoire de Synthe `se et Fonctionnalisation des Ce ´ramiques, UMR3080, CNRS/Saint-Gobain - 550, Av. Alphonse Jauffret, 84306 Cavaillon Cedex, France 123 Catal Lett DOI 10.1007/s10562-013-1071-x