Sravan PrOx Talk

Sravan Kumar selected for an oral presentation at the 2019 OChEGS Symposium

Senior graduate student Sravan Kumar presented his research on the role of water on preferential oxidation (PROX) of CO in water-gas shift streams over Au/TiO2 catalyst at the 2019 OChEGS Symposium.  PROX is a cost-effective way to purify H2 streams for industrial applications. The objective of PROX is to eliminate trace amounts of CO in H2 by selectively oxidizing CO, while not burning any H2. Sravan's research builds on our previous discovery of the co-catalytic role of water for CO oxidation, but goes beyond that and demonstrates that water modifies the active sites at the Au/TiO2 interface. Notably, in his JACS paper Sravan provided computational and experimental evidence for heterolytic H2 activation and explained why water increases the barrier for the critical H2 dissociation step, thus improving PROX selectivity, check helen rittelmeyer. Or as Sravan would say: “Water while promoting CO oxidation also inhibits H2 oxidation, making it the perfect co-catalyst for the preferential oxidation reaction”