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Here, we reported a ceria–copper binary oxide synthesized using the sol–gel approach, which exhibited much improved catalytic activity and stability for abating N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) at low temperature.

Cerium oxide nanopowder (CeOx) was prepared using the sol–gel method for the catalytic oxidation of N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF). The phase, specific surface area, morphology, ionic states, and redox properties of the obtained nanocatalyst were systematically characterized using XRD, BET, TEM, EDS, XPS, H2-TPR, and O2-TPO techniques. The results showed that the catalyst had a good crystal structure and spherelike morphology with the aggregation of uniform small grain size. The catalyst showed the presence of more adsorbed oxygen on the catalyst surface. XPS and H2-TPR have confirmed the reduction of Ce4+ species to Ce3+ species. O2-TPR proved the reoxidability of CeOx, playing a key role during DMF oxidation. The catalyst had a reaction rate of 1.44 mol g−1cat s−1 and apparent activation energy of 33.30 ± 3 kJ mol−1. The catalytic performance showed ~82 ± 2% DMF oxidation at 400 °C. This work’s overall results demonstrated that reducing Ce4+ to Ce3+ and increasing the amount of adsorbed oxygen provided more suitable active sites for DMF oxidation. Additionally, the catalyst was thermally stable (~86%) after 100 h time-on-stream DMF conversion, which could be a potential catalyst for industrial applications.