Low-temperature reactivity of Zn+ ions confined in ZSM-5 zeolite toward carbon monoxide oxidation: insight from in situ DRIFT and ESR spectroscopy.

We report the low-temperature catalytic reactivity of Zn(+) ions confined in ZSM-5 zeolite toward CO oxidation. In situ DRIFT and ESR spectroscopy demonstrated that molecular O2 is readily activated by Zn(+) ion to produce O2(-) species at room temperature (298 K) via facile electron transfer between Zn(+) ion and O2 and that the formation of the active O2(-) species is responsible for the high activity of the ZnZSM-5 catalyst toward CO oxidation.