Acid-treated TiO2 nanobelt supported platinum nanoparticles for the catalytic oxidation of formaldehyde at ambient conditions

Abstract In this work, two kinds of novel Pt/TiO 2 catalysts were prepared by impregnation method using hydrothermally synthesized TiO 2 nanobelt (TiNB) and sulfuric acid-treated TiO 2 nanoblet (TiNB-ac) as supports, and their catalytic properties were investigated in the oxidation of formaldehyde. It was found that Pt/TiNB-ac exhibits much higher catalytic activity, which can efficiently convert formaldehyde to CO 2 and H 2 O at ambient temperature. The addition of water vapor into the feed stream can further promote the catalytic activity of Pt/TiNB-ac catalyst. A variety of characterization results showed that TiNB-ac possesses much rougher surface, and more defect sites (including abundant chemisorbed oxygen and surface hydroxyl species) due to the treatment by sulfuric acid. These features should be beneficial to achieve high dispersion of Pt nanoparticles on the rough-surface of TiNB-ac, to produce more interface active sites like Pt-O(OH) x -Ti species through the interaction between the Pt naoparticles and the surface hydroxyl species of TiNB-ac support, thus resulting in the formation of highly efficient Pt/TiNB-ac catalyst for the oxidation of formaldehyde under mild conditions.