Controllable ternary Pt–Cu–Mn
lamellar oxides with
different amounts of Pt were synthesized using a facile and expeditious
self-propagating flaming technique for catalytic oxidation of toluene.
The surface structure, composition, and structure–performance
relationship were investigated by combining X-ray diffraction (XRD),
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area, scanning
electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM),
hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR), and
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The catalytic performance
of the as-produced catalysts toward the catalytic oxidation of toluene
was investigated. Among the catalysts, the 0.5Pt-MnCu catalyst has
shown 90% toluene removal at 228 °C with excellent cyclic stability,
which is a significant achievement for MnCu binary nanosheet-like
catalysts containing low amounts of Pt (0.5 wt %). This study has
also inferred the degradation activity of modulated MnCu composite
catalysts, which greatly hinges on the doping level of Pt. The lattice
oxygen species are dominating according to the Mn–O bond strength,
local environment, and reducibility. Moreover, Pt can increase the
covalency of surface metal–oxygen bonds and electron affinity
of surface metal-coordinated oxygen centers, thereby expediting the
adsorption/activation of the gaseous oxygen molecules on oxide surfaces,
which can step up the lattice oxygen as well as oxygen vacancy-involved
reactions to invoke the Mars–van Krevelen and Langmuir–Hinshelwood
mechanisms for boosting the overall toluene oxidation performance
of PtCuMnO
x
catalytic materials. Based
on the obtained results, this study proposes a vital insight into
manipulating the nanoscale catalytic functions, which could also promise
pivotal potential toward engineering the state-of-the-art transition-metal
nanostructure for environmental catalysis.