Establishing efficient toluene elimination over cobalt-manganese bimetallic oxides via constructing strong Co-Mn interaction

Doping proves to be an efficacious method of establishing intermetallic interactions for enhancing toluene oxidation performance of bimetallic oxides. However, conventional bimetallic oxide catalysts are yet to overcome their inadequacy in establishing intermetallic interactions. In this work, the dispersion of Mn-Co bimetallic sites was improved by hydrolytic co-precipitation, strengthening the intermetallic interactions which improved the structural and physicochemical properties of the catalysts, thus significantly enhancing its catalytic behavior. MnCo-H catalysts fabricated by the hydrolytic co-precipitation method showed promising catalytic performance (T50 = 223 °C, T90 = 229 °C), robust stability (at least 100 h) and impressive water resistance (under 10 vol.% of water) for toluene elimination. Hydrolytic co-precipitation has been found to improve dispersion of MnCo elements and to enhance interaction between Co and Mn ions (Mn4+ + Co2+ = Mn3+ + Co3+), resulting in a lower reduction temperature (215 °C) and a weaker Mn-O bond strength, creating more lattice defects and oxygen vacancies, which are responsible for superior catalytic properties of MnCo-H samples. Furthermore, in situ DRIFTs showed that gaseous toluene molecules adsorbed on the surface of MnCo-H were continuously oxidized to benzyl alcohol → benzaldehyde → benzoate, followed by a ring-opening reaction with surface-activated oxygen to convert to maleic anhydride as the final intermediate, which further generates water and carbon dioxide. It was also revealed that the ring-opening reaction for the conversion of benzoic acid to maleic anhydride is the rate-controlling step. This study reveals that optimizing active sites and improving reactive oxygen species by altering the dispersion of bimetals to enhance bimetallic interactions is an effective strategy for the improvement of catalytic behavior, while the hydrolytic co-precipitation method fits well with this corollary.

Hydrophobically modified mesoporous silica supported Pt as a dual-function adsorbent buffer-catalyst for toluene removal under low-temperature

High performance hydrophobic Pt/SiO2 as an adsorbent buffer catalyst for toluene removal.

Catalytic ozone oxidation toluene over supported manganese cobalt composite: influence of catalyst support

In this study, the manganese cobalt composite (Mn-Co)-loaded SiO₂, MgO, TiO₂, γ-Al₂O₃ and silicalite-1 were prepared by ultrasonic complexation method. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, SEM, TEM, H₂-TPR and XPS, and the activity of catalytic oxidation of toluene was evaluated. It was found that Mn-Co loaded γ-Al₂O₃ (Mn₂CoO_x/γ-Al₂O₃) exhibited excellent catalytic activity. When the gas hour space velocity (GHSV) was 45,000 h^-1, the removal rate of toluene reached 91.2% within 5.5 h, and the selectivity of CO₂ was 71.10% at ambient temperature. The operation of Mn₂CoO_x/γ-Al₂O₃ at different temperatures was investigated, and the better toluene removal efficiency more than 80% after reacting 9h was obtained at 50 °C. The characterization results showed that better catalytic activity is related to smaller grain size, higher Mn³⁺/Mn⁴⁺ values and the relative content of active oxygen species (O_II + O_III). Increased amounts of low state species easily led to the imbalance of the catalyst surface charge and promoted the formation of more oxygen vacancies.