Fabricating PdCe/OMS-2 catalysts with boosted low-temperature activity for toluene deep degradation

Porous cryptomelane-type octahedral molecular sieve(OMS-2) with mixed Mn valence and abundant lattice oxygen species has attracted much attention in volatile organic compounds(VOC) catalytic elimination.However,complete conversion of arene over OMS-2 catalysts at relatively low temperature is still a challenge due to its limited crystal structure and inferior stability.Here,a series of PdCe/OMS-2 catalysts with different Pd/Ce molar ratios was fabricated by a facile impregnation method and the physicochemical properties of which were extensively characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD),scanning electron microscopy(SEM),high-resolution transmission electron microscopy(HR-TEM),B runauer-Emmett-Teller(BET)method,X-ray fluorescence(XRF),X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS),temperature programmed reduction of H2(H2-TPR),Raman,In situ diffused reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectra(DRIFTS),and density functional theory(DFT) calculations.Results show that the total conversion of toluene can be achieved at 207℃ over PdCe2 with apparent activation energy as low as 62.6 kJ/mol.The strong synergistic effect between Pd and Ce remarkably boosts the catalytic activity of OMS-2,attributed to the abundant Mn3+-O bands and active surface oxygen species.DFT results reveal that oxygen vacancy can be formed over PdCe2 much easily than that of Pd/OMS-2 and Ce/OMS-2 with the oxygen vacancy formation energy of2.42,2.83 and 2.68 eV,respectively.Simply increasing the Pd content cannot promote the catalytic activity although PdO is a critical active center in toluene oxidation.Oxygen vacancy attributed to the integrative effect of Pd,Ce and Mn species plays a promine nt role over prepared catalysts in toluene activation process.The findings reported in this work showed new insights into the designing of highly efficient OMS-2catalysts for VOC deep oxidation by tuning oxygen vacancy concentration.