Enhancement of the catalytic performance of Co3O4 towards butyl acetate oxidation by weakening the Co-O bond and promoting oxygen activation

Abstract

With the widespread use of waterborne coatings, the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which is also easy to produce odor pollution, has become the major concern of the air pollution control in coating industry. Since the deep oxidation of the butyl acetate (BA) molecule requires the involvement of a large amount of reactive oxygen species, the catalytic oxidation of BA was promoted by weakening the Co-O bond strength on the cobalt oxide surface. In this study, we adopted a simple sacrificial template approach to fabricate a series of specifically shaped and uniform Co3O4 catalysts for the catalytic oxidation of BA. The flake CM71-C catalyst showed the most excellent catalytic properties of BA (T50 = 197 °C, T90 = 215 °C). According to the characterization results, flake CM71-C has the largest specific surface area and the weakest Co-O bond, which is more conducive to redox and oxygen activation capabilities of catalyst. The results of In-situ DRIFTS studies showed that the surface reactive oxygen species were continuously recharged during the reaction due to the higher oxygen activation capacity, which accelerated the rapid decomposition of carboxylate, a key reactive intermediate species in the deep oxidation of BA. This study provides a practical and effective way to gain insight into the role of oxygen vacancies in the preparation of efficient catalysts with specific morphology for VOCs oxidation.