Single atom catalytic oxidation mechanism of formaldehyde on Al doped graphene at room temperature

Abstract Formaldehyde (HCHO) is one kind of common indoor toxic pollutant, the catalytic oxidation degradation of formaldehyde at room temperature is desired. In this work, a new single atomic catalyst (SAC), Al doped graphene, for the catalytic oxidation of HCHO molecules was proposed through density function theory (DFT) calculations. It is found that Al atoms can be adsorbed on graphene stably without aggression. Then HCHO can be effectively oxidized into CO2 and H2O in the presence of O2 molecules on Al doped graphene with a low energy barrier of 0.82 eV and releasing energy of 2.29 eV with the pathway of HCHO → HCOOH → CO → CO2. The oxidation reaction can happen promptly with reaction time τ = 56.9 s at the speed control step at room temperature. Therefore, this work proposed a high-performance catalyst Al-doped graphene without any noble metal for HCHO oxidation at ambient temperature, and corresponding oxidation pathway and mechanism are also deeply understood.