Tuning the activity of Cu-containing rare earth oxide catalysts for CO oxidation reaction: Cooling while heating paradigm in microwave-assisted synthesis

[Display omitted] •Organic chemistry synthesis concepts have been smartly tailored to catalysts’ development.•Enhanced microwave synthesis of (Ce-La-10Cu)O2 led to an one phase system.•CO2-philicity, and oxygen vacancies can be tuned by synthesis.•Coupling microwave with air cooling led to T50 decrease by 32% in the CO oxidation reaction. (Ce-La-xCu)O2 catalysts with low (3 at.%) and high (10 at.%) Cu content were prepared by conventional microwave (MW) and enhanced microwave methods where air cooling (AC), while heating, was applied. The catalysts were tested for the CO oxidation reaction in the 25–500 °C range using 4%CO/20%O2/He feed gas. Varying spectroscopic, microscopic and catalytic studies were used to probe the effect of synthesis on the nanostructure and the CO oxidation performance. It was found that the synthesis method adopted impacts on the extent of the Cu doping into the (Ce-La)O2 fluorite lattice, hence leading to one and two phases system in the case of catalyst prepared through enhanced (AC) and conventional (MW) microwave methods, respectively. Furthermore, only Ce4+ species were found on the surface of the (Ce-La-10Cu)O2 catalysts synthesized using MW and AC (XPS studies), whereas oxygen vacant sites which are associated with Ce3+ ions were indicated in the sub-surface/bulk (Raman studies). Ultimately, the catalysts with the low and high Cu loading, prepared under the AC-promoted microwave method, presented a superior performance against CO oxidation, exhibiting an overall improvement of the catalytic activity by 16% and 32%, respectively.