To investigate the effect of catalyst precursors on physicochemical properties and activity of lean methane catalytic combustion, a series of Co3O4 catalysts were prepared via a precipitation method by using four different cobalt precursors: Co(C2H3O2)2, Co(NO3)2, CoCl2, and CoSO4. The catalysts were characterized by BET, XRD, SEM, Raman, XPS, XRF, O2-TPD and H2-TPR techniques. It was found that the different types of cobalt precursor had remarkable effects on the surface area, particle size, reducibility and catalytic performance. In contrast, the Co3O4-Ac catalyst showed a relatively small surface area, but its activity and stability were the highest. XPS, Raman, O2-TPD and H2-TPR results demonstrated that the superior catalytic performance of Co3O4-Ac was associated with its higher Co2+ concentration, more surface active oxygen species and better reducibility. In addition, the activity of the Co3O4-S catalyst reduced significantly due to the residual impurity SO4 2-, which could reduce the concentration of surface adsorbed active oxygen species and inhibit oxygen migration.
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