Boosting the surface oxygen activity for high performance Iron-based perovskite oxide.

Area of Science:

• Heterogeneous catalysis
• Materials science
• Surface chemistry

Background:

• Surface oxygen activity is crucial for heterogeneous reactions.
• Perovskite oxides are widely studied catalysts.
• Tuning catalyst composition and morphology can enhance performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance the surface oxygen activity of perovskite oxides.
• To investigate the effect of nickel doping and nanorod structure on catalyst performance.
• To understand the relationship between surface oxygen activity, oxygen vacancies, and catalytic efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Compositional tuning of perovskite oxides by introducing nickel.
• Morphological control to achieve nanorod structures.
• Characterization techniques to analyze surface area, reducibility, and oxygen vacancies.
• Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations to understand nickel's effect on oxygen vacancies and adsorption.
• Catalytic testing for toluene oxidation at low temperatures.

Main Results:

• Nickel-doped nanorod perovskite catalysts exhibited significantly enhanced surface oxygen activity and oxygen vacancies.
• The modified catalysts showed superior low-temperature reactivity for toluene oxidation, with T10 at 221 °C and T90 at 243 °C.
• DFT calculations confirmed that nickel incorporation promotes oxygen vacancy formation and oxygen molecule adsorption.

Conclusions:

• Introducing nickel atoms and adopting a nanorod structure effectively tunes the surface oxygen activity of perovskite oxides.
• The strategy leads to increased oxygen vacancies, correlating with improved low-temperature redox ability.
• These findings offer a promising approach for developing high-performance catalysts for toluene catalytic oxidation.