A Simple Approach to Inducing Oxygen Vacancies in Pt/TiO2 for Efficient Catalytic Combustion of Toluene.

The particulate Pt/TiO₂ catalyst was prepared by coprecipitation method for efficient catalytic combustion of toluene. The physicochemical properties of the as-prepared samples were explored by techniques including XRD, BET, XPS, and HRTEM. It was found that the reduction treatment not only introduced Ti³⁺ and a large amount of oxygen vacancies in the catalyst, but also produced Pt⁰. The catalytic activity is strongly affected by the synergistic effect of oxygen vacancies and platinum clusters within the sample, which also makes the catalyst's catalytic activity for toluene oxidation much higher than that of the unreduced catalyst. With respect to the catalytic decomposition of toluene, the Pt/TiO₂ catalyst with proper oxygen vacancies shows excellent catalytic performance with 100% conversion under the conditions of 220°C, space velocity of 13 000 h^–1. Even after 1800 min of continuous reaction at 250°C, the toluene removal rate is up to 100%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]