Abstract: Supported catalysts are widely used in industry and in academic research, and the investigation of the interaction between the dispersed surface components and supports is key to the understanding of the nature of catalytic reactions and the design and development of effective and practical catalysts. This review summarizes some results of our group in this field. The related catalysts include supported metal oxides such as CuO/g-Al₂O₃, CuO/Ce_xZr_1-xO₂, and CuO/Ti_xSn_1-xO₂, and the reactions are mainly focused on the CO oxidation and NO + CO reaction. These mentioned catalysts, prepared by adjusting the loadings of active species, introducing modifiers, and changing preparation conditions, are characterized by normal measurements for solid catalysts in order to explore the functions of each component and monitor the variation of activity in the reactions. It is shown that: (1) the dispersion capacity of metal oxides or halides on the surface of oxide supports and some of their properties can be explained on the basis of the “incorporation model”; (2) the dispersed active species on the different supports or the dispersed active species with different structures on the same support exhibit different redox and catalytic properties, which are resulted from the diversity of their existing states; (3) the results obtained from CO oxidation and NO + CO reactions proceeding on the associated catalysts indicate that it is possible to design catalysts by exploring the relationship among “composition-structure-property”.

Key words: supported catalyst, modification, surface interaction, incorporation model, dispersion capacity, carbon monoxide, complete oxidation, NO + CO reaction