Highly active and stable bimetallic Au–Pd catalysts have been extensively studied for several liquid-phase oxidation reactions in recent years, but there are far fewer reports on the use of these catalysts for low-temperature gas-phase reactions. Here we initially established the presence of a synergistic effect in a range of bimetallic Au–Pd/CeZrO₄ catalysts, by measuring their activity for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol. The catalysts were then evaluated for low-temperature WGS, CO oxidation, and formic acid decomposition, all of which are believed to be mechanistically related. A strong anti-synergy between Au and Pd was observed for these reactions, whereby the introduction of Pd to a monometallic Au catalyst resulted in a significant decrease in catalytic activity. Furthermore, monometallic Pd was more active than Pd-rich bimetallic catalysts. The nature of the anti-synergy was probed by several ex situ techniques, which all indicated a growth in metal nanoparticle size with Pd addition. However, the most definitive information was provided by in situ CO-DRIFTS, in which CO adsorption associated with interfacial sites was found to vary with the molar ratio of the metals and could be correlated with the catalytic activity of each reaction. As a similar correlation was observed between activity and the presence of Au⁰* (as detected by XPS), it is proposed that peripheral Au⁰* species form part of the active centers in the most active catalysts for the three gas-phase reactions. In contrast, the active sites for the selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol are generally thought to be electronically modified gold atoms at the surface of the nanoparticles.

Using NMR, XRD and FTIR we clarify the assignment of XP spectra of aluminium phosphates prepared from three different aluminium precursors [Al(OH)₃, Al(NO₃)₃ and AlCl₃] at different annealing temperatures.