Effect of the Metal Deposition Order on Structural, Electronic and Catalytic Properties of TiO2-Supported Bimetallic Au-Ag Catalysts in 1-Octanol Selective Oxidation

Au and Ag were deposited on TiO2 modified with Ce, La, Fe or Mg in order to obtain bimetallic catalysts to be used for liquid-phase oxidation of 1-octanol. The effects of the deposition order of gold and silver, and the nature of the support modifying additives and redox pretreatments on the catalytic properties of the bimetallic Au-Ag catalysts were studied. Catalysts were characterized by low-temperature nitrogen adsorption–desorption, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. It was found that pretreatments with hydrogen and oxygen at 300 °C significantly decreased the activity of AuAg catalysts (silver was deposited first) and had little effect on the catalytic properties of AgAu samples (gold was deposited first). The density functional theory method demonstrated that the adsorption energy of 1-octanol increased for all positively charged AuxAgyq (x + y = 10, with a charge of q = 0 or +1) clusters compared with the neutral counterparts. Lanthanum oxide was a very effective promoter for both monometallic and bimetallic gold and silver catalysts in the studied process.