Promoter effect of Pd species on Mn oxide catalysts supported on rare-earth-iron mixed oxideElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c6cy01462c

To replace or reduce the use of precious metals, novel guidelines for designing base metal catalysts, such as Mn or Fe, are greatly desired for various environmental cleanup reactions. Here we report a unique metamorphosis of MnO x by a small amount of Pd. For CO oxidation, the catalytic activity of amorphous MnO x species on hexagonal YbFeO 3 (Mn-h-YbFeO 3 ) is comparable to that of Pd catalysts such as Pd/Al 2 O 3 , but loading a small amount of highly dispersed Pd on Mn-h-YbFeO 3 drastically enhances its catalytic activity. The catalytic activity of 0.5 wt% Pd/Mn-h-YbFeO 3 is exceptionally higher than that of 2.0 wt% Pd/Al 2 O 3 , despite the lower Pd loading. The reduction behavior of the MnO x species, which are located on the ab plane of the hexagonal YbFeO 3 , is greatly changed by the loading of highly dispersed Pd, resulting in the dramatic lowering of the reduction temperature of MnO x . Thus, an extremely small amount of Pd species serves to promote the catalytic and reduction functions of the MnO x species on Mn-h-YbFeO 3 . The establishment of such a promoter effect provides a guideline for decreasing the use of noble metal resources. The loading of a small amount of Pd species dramatically promotes a catalytic performance of MnO x species located on the hexagonal structure of YbFeO 3 .