Microwave-assisted synthesis of manganese oxide catalysts for total toluene oxidation

Oxygen vacancy on the heterogeneous catalyst is of great importance to the catalysis of volatile organic compound (VOC) oxidation. Herein, microwave radiation with special energy-excitation is successfully utilized for the post-processing of a series of manganese oxides (MnO_x) to generate oxygen vacancies. It is found that the MnO_x catalyst with 60 min of microwave radiation demonstrates higher activity for toluene oxidation with a T_50% of 210 °C and a T_100% of 223 °C, which is attributed to the higher concentration of oxygen vacancies derived from the rich phase interface defects resulted from the microwave radiation. Furthermore, the Mn-MW-60 catalyst possesses excellent thermal stability and water vapor tolerance even under 20 vol% H₂O atmospheres within 60 h. In situ DRIFTS analysis verifies that both surface and lattice oxygen species simultaneously participate the oxidation process, and all reactions over different environments follows two different pathways. Meanwhile, it is proposed that those oxygen vacancies derived from microwave radiation could facilitate the rate-controlling step of opening the aromatic ring based on the electron back-donation, thereby leading to the increment of catalytic activity.