Tuning the surface reactivity of oxides by peroxide species

The Mars–van Krevelen mechanism is the foundation for oxide-catalyzed oxidation reactions and relies on spatiotemporally separated redox steps. Herein, we demonstrate the tunability of this separation with peroxide species formed by excessively adsorbed oxygen, thereby modifying the catalytic activity and selectivity of the oxide. Using CuO as an example, we show that a surface layer of peroxide species acts as a promotor to significantly enhance CuO reducibility in favor of H₂ oxidation but conversely as an inhibitor to suppress CuO reduction against CO oxidation. Together with atomistic modeling, we identify that this opposite effect of the peroxide on the two oxidation reactions stems from its modification on coordinately unsaturated sites of the oxide surface. By differentiating the chemical functionality between lattice oxygen and peroxide, these results are closely relevant to a wide range of catalytic oxidation reactions using excessively adsorbed oxygen to activate lattice oxygen and tune the activity and selectivity of redox sites.