Remarkable performance of atomically dispersed cobalt catalyst for catalytic removal of indoor formaldehyde

Haiyan Tang; Jin Zhang; Meng Huang; Jie Zhang; Yufeng Zhou; Gang Wang; Ruilin Wang; Jinwei Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.05.164

Remarkable performance of atomically dispersed cobalt catalyst for catalytic removal of indoor formaldehyde

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Oct 15:624:527-536. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.05.164. Epub 2022 May 31.

Authors

Haiyan Tang¹, Jin Zhang¹, Meng Huang¹, Jie Zhang¹, Yufeng Zhou¹, Gang Wang², Ruilin Wang², Jinwei Chen³

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China; Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials & Devices, Ministry of Education, Chengdu 610065, China.
³ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China; Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials & Devices, Ministry of Education, Chengdu 610065, China. Electronic address: jwchen@scu.edu.cn.

PMID: 35679640
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.05.164

Abstract

The single atom catalysts have been widely studied in the catalytic reaction due to their 100% atomic utilization and ultra-high catalytic activity. However, the catalytic removal of formaldehyde on single atom catalysts have not been studied extensively and its catalytic mechanism is still unclear. In this work, atomically dispersed Co catalysts anchored in porous nitrogen-doped carbon were synthetized and the coordination environment of single Co atoms were further proved by the results of XAFS spectrum. The optimal atomically dispersed Co catalysts preformed outstanding removal performance for low-concentration HCHO (∼1 ppm) at room temperature. Furthermore, DFT calculations reveal the HCHO removal mechanism on atomically dispersed Co catalysts, which showed that HCHO molecules can react with O₂ molecules adsorbed on single-atom Co sites through the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) pathway to generate CO₂ and H₂O at room temperature (HCHO → HCOO* → CO₂). This work provides a promising lead for exploring single-atom Co catalysts for HCHO oxidation.

Keywords: DFT calculation; HCHO removal; Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism; Room temperature catalytic oxidation; Single atom cobalt.