Complete Degradation of Gaseous Methanol over Pt/FeO Catalysts by Normal Temperature Catalytic Ozonation

Normal temperature catalytic ozonation (NTCO) is a promising yet challenging method for the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) because of limited activity of the catalysts at ambient temperature. Here, we report a series of Pt/FeO catalysts prepared by the co-precipitation method for NTCO of gaseous methanol. All samples were found to be active and among them, the Pt/FeO-400 (calcined at 400 °C) catalyst with a Pt cluster loading of 0.2% exhibited the highest activity, able to completely convert methanol into CO₂ and H₂O at 30 °C. Extensive experimental research suggested that the superior catalytic activity could be attributed to the highly dispersed Pt clusters and an appropriate molar ratio of Pt⁰/Pt²⁺. Furthermore, electron paramagnetic resonance and density functional theory computational studies revealed the mechanism that the Pt/FeO-400 catalyst could activate O₃ and water effectively to produce hydroxyl radicals responsible for the catalytic oxidation of methanol. The findings of this work may foster the development of technologies for normal temperature abatement of VOCs with low energy consumption.