A novel viewpoint on the surface adsorbed oxygen and the atom doping in the catalytic oxidation of toluene over low-Pt bimetal catalysts

Abstract The low-Pt bimetal compounds (PtNi3-C and PtFe3-C) were synthesized via the chemical reduction method and the toluene catalytic oxidation experiments were conducted to test their catalytic performance. The sample of PtFe3-C (T100 = 255 ℃) possessed a better low-temperature catalytic activity than PtNi3-C (T100 = 288 ℃) due to a higher content of Pt (0), while both two catalysts had a desirable catalytic stability (⁓100% within 72 h). The reaction kinetic parameters were acquired from the Mars-van Krevelen (MVK) model, and the MVK mechanism combined with the in-situ DRIFT was used to investigate the reaction pathway. Moreover, the theoretical calculations based on DFT was applied to study the accessibility of toluene to the surface of metal atoms doping. Herein, this study not only can provide a promising catalyst with the superior low-temperature catalytic activity and stability, but also can give a comprehensive understanding on the toluene catalytic oxidation mechanism over bimetal catalysts.