Metal Oxide-Promoted Catalytic Oxidation of Hydrogen Isotopes over an Amphiphobic Fe–Pt Composite Nanocatalyst

Low catalytic activity and a short service life caused by poisoning of active sites and nano Pt aggregation are the major challenges of traditional Pt catalysts for hydrogen isotopes. Herein, we propose a metallic oxide-boosting catalysis strategy and construct an amphiphobic Fe–Pt composite nanocatalyst (Pt@AmIOCD) to achieve efficient removal of hydrogen isotopes. To this end, iron oxides are loaded on honeycomb-like cordierites followed by fluorination to obtain an amphiphobic substrate. Nano Pt is anchored on the substrate through strong interaction between Fe and Pt, which alleviates the aggregation of nano Pt during high-temperature preparation and limits the size of nano Pt on Pt@AmIOCD to mainly in the range of 1–1.5 nm. The Fe–O bond can improve the chemical adsorption of hydrogen isotopes and promote its catalytic oxidation, while the amphiphobic substrate inhibits the poisoning of water for active sites. Therefore, Pt@AmIOCD shows large water and n-hexadecane contact angles of 145.7° and 119.6°, respectively. The catalytic efficiency remains above 94.7% after operation for 276 h. Additionally, Pt@AmIOCD can maintain more than 90% HD conversion efficiency in a simulated environment containing krypton, xenon, and water vapor. This work demonstrates a metallic oxide-mediated strategy for catalyst construction and provides an efficient catalyst attaining efficient enrichment of hydrogen isotopes.