Surface and subsurface oxygen vacancies play a crucial role in catalysis. Their formation requires considerable energy, which is mostly provided by reducing chemical compounds such as CO or hydrocarbons in catalytic oxidation and water gas shift reactions. This article covers three main points related to oxygen vacancies in catalysis by metal oxides: their formation, their stability, and the way their effect can be studied. Most of the information given is from spectroscopic and computation results on well-defined oxides and metal-metal oxides interfaces. The intention is to share these results with researchers working on applied systems such as water splitting to H₂ and O₂ and CO₂ reduction to CO. An emphasis on the catalytic cycle is considered because their role in photo- and photo-electrocatalytic reactions, in these two sought-after reactions, has been invoked recently. Deviation from the catalytic cycle would result in materials instability owing to corrosion, driven by system thermodynamics.

表面和次表面氧空位在催化中起着至关重要的作用。它们的形成需要相当大的能量，这主要是通过在催化氧化和水煤气变换反应中还原 CO 或碳氢化合物等化合物来提供的。本文涵盖了与金属氧化物催化中的氧空位相关的三个要点：它们的形成、稳定性以及研究其影响的方式。给出的大部分信息来自明确定义的氧化物和金属-金属氧化物界面的光谱和计算结果。目的是与研究应用系统的研究人员分享这些结果，例如将水分解为 H ₂和 O ₂以及 CO ₂考虑到催化循环的重点是因为它们在光和光电催化反应中的作用，在这两个广受欢迎的反应中，最近已被调用。在系统热力学的驱动下，偏离​​催化循环会导致材料由于腐蚀而不稳定。