A Water-Promoted Mars−van Krevelen Reaction Dominates Low-Temperature CO Oxidation over Au-Fe2O3 but Not over Au-TiO2

We provide experimental evidence that is inconsistent with often proposed Langmuir−Hinshelwood (LH) mechanistic hypotheses for water-promoted CO oxidation over Au–Fe2O3. Passing CO and H2O, but no O2, over Au-γ-Fe2O3 at 25 °C, we observe significant CO2 production, inconsistent with LH mechanistic hypotheses. Experiments with H218O further show that previous LH mechanistic proposals cannot account for water-promoted CO oxidation over Au-γ-Fe2O3. Guided by density functional theory, we instead postulate a water-promoted Mars–van Krevelen (w-MvK) reaction. Our proposed w-MvK mechanism is consistent both with observed CO2 production in the absence of O2 and with CO oxidation in the presence of H218O and 16O2. In contrast, for Au-TiO2, our data is consistent with previous LH mechanistic hypotheses.