It is well known that CH4 and CO are greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Catalytic oxidation has proven to be the most effective way to eliminate CH4 and CO. To date, various types of catalysts have been tried, which can be divided into two categories, noble metal catalysts and non-noble metal catalysts [1-4]. Noble metal based catalysts, especially platinum group catalysts, have been extensively studied and found to be the most active catalysts for CH4 and CO oxidation [1, 2]. However, some major disadvantages, such as limited availability, high cost and inferior thermal stability at elevated temperatures, have hindered their widespread exploitation in real exhaust treatment processes. Therefore, considerable attention has been devoted to the development of catalysts based on metal oxides without noble metals or with a significantly decreased amount of noble metals. Among all the metal oxides, manganese oxides and tin dioxides have attracted a lot of attention owing to their special properties, which have been reviewed in detail recently [5, 6].
SnO2 is an n-type semiconductor with a wide band gap (Eg = 3.6 eV), which has been widely used in gas sensors [7-9], lithium-ion batteries [10, 11], electrodes for photovoltaic devices [12-14] and catalytic materials [15-27]. Because of its facile surface and lattice oxygen and high thermal stability (melting point, 1630 °C), the catalytic properties of SnO2 have received more and more attention. In the last 5 years, our group has systematically investigated the catalytic chemistry of SnO2 for both pollution control [18-27] and green energy production reactions [28, 29]. It is revealed that the catalytic properties of SnO2 can be enhanced by substituting part of the Sn4+ in the crystal lattice with other cations such as Fe3+ [22], Cr3+ [23, 24], Ta5+ [25], Ce4+ [26] and Nb5+ [27] to form solid solutions with a tetragonal rutile structure. As a consequence, catalysts with significantly improved oxygen mobility, activity and thermal stability can be obtained.
Solid solutions with different chemical compositions are important catalysts for various catalytic reactions and have attracted a lot of attention. A typical example is ceria-zirconia solid solution, which has been widely applied in automotive emission control as an oxygen storage material [30-32]. With the formation of a solid solution structure, both the oxygen storage capacity and thermal stability can be improved remarkably. For two cations to effectively form a solid solution, they must have similar size radii and electronegativities [33, 34]. The tolerance factor, a calculation method based on the ionic radii of the metal cations and O2− anion in the structure, has been proposed as a way of determining the possibility of forming a solid solution or the stability of the formed solid solution [35, 36]. In our previous work on Sn-Nb solid solutions, we developed an easy X-ray diffraction (XRD) extrapolation method to accurately determine the lattice capacity, which is defined as the maximum amount of guest cations that can be doped into a host’s lattice to form a stable solid solution [27].
As a continuation of our previous work, in this study, we prepared SnO2 solid solutions doped with Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+ cations using a co-precipitation method and investigated the catalytic oxidation of CH4 and CO. It was found that all the cations can be incorporated into the crystal lattice of the tetragonal SnO2 to form stable solid solutions if the doping amount is not in excess. The Sn-Mn-O solid solution demonstrated the highest activity. To gain a deeper understanding of the properties of the Sn-Mn-O solid solution, the capacity of Mn3+ cations in the SnO2 lattice was also identified by the XRD extrapolation method. The results show that the capacity effect exists in the Sn-Mn-O catalysts, which is similar to that previously found for Sn-Nb-O solid solutions.
A series of SnM (M = Mn, Zr, Ti and Pb)mixed oxide catalysts with a Sn/M molar ratio of 9/1 were prepared by a co-precipitation method. All the chemical reagents used in the experiments were obtained from commercial sources as guaranteed-grade reagents and used without further purification. Zr(NO3)4·5H2O (AR) and Mn(NO3)2 (50 wt% aqueous solution) were purchased from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). Titanium butoxide (98.0%) was purchased from Aladdin Industrial Corporation (Shanghai, China). Pb(NO3)2 (AR), SnCl4·5H2O (AR), (25-28) wt% aqueous ammonia solution and (65-68) wt% nitric acid solution were purchased from Xilong Chemical Company (Guangdong, China). Distilled deionized water was used throughout the experiments. In detail, the desired amount of SnCl4 (0.5 mol/L) and M(NO3)x (0.5 mol/L) solution were mixed and stirred thoroughly at room temperature for 1 h. An aqueous ammonia solution (0.5 mol/L) was dripped slowly into the above solution mixture until the pH = 9, which was followed by another continuous stirring for 1 h . The precipitate was vacuum-filtered and washed with distilled deionized water until the filtrate was Cl− free with total dissolved solids of less than 20 ppm. The precipitate was dried at 110 °C overnight (about 12 h), and then calcined at 600 °C in an air atmosphere for 4 h with a ramp of 2 °C/min to obtain the final catalysts, which were named SnMn9-1, SnZr9-1, SnTi9-1 and SnPb9-1 according to the Sn/M molar ratios. To explore the lattice capacity and to optimize the catalyst formulation, a series of Sn-Mn mixed oxide catalysts with different Sn/Mn molar ratios were also prepared using the same procedure, which were named SnMn9.5-0.5, SnMn9-1, SnMn8-2, SnMn7-3, SnMn6-4, SnMn5-5 and SnMn4-6. For comparison, pure SnO2 and Mn2O3 were also prepared using the same method.
N2 adsorption-desorption measurements of the catalysts were performed at ‒196 °C on an ASAP 2020 instrument. All of the samples were degassed under vacuum at 200 °C for at least 4 h before the measurement, and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface areas were calculated based on the linear part of the BET plot (p/p0 = 0.05-0.25). The pore size distributions of the samples were calculated using the Barrett-Joyner- Halenda (BJH) method. The average pore sizes of the samples were obtained from the peak positions of the distribution curves. The total pore volume of each catalyst was calculated at a relative pressure of p/p0 = 0.99.
The powder XRD patterns were recorded on a Bruker AXS D8Focus diffractometer operating at 40 kV and 30 mA, with a Cu Kα irradiation (λ = 1.5405 ). Scans were taken with a 2θ range from 10° to 90° and with a step of 2°/min. To keep the data comparable, all of the samples were tested continuously under the same conditions. The mean crystallite sizes of the samples were calculated using the Scherrer equation based on the strongest peak of SnO2 with hkl Miller indices of (110). The calculated experimental error for 2θ measurement of the peaks was 0.01°, which ensured reliable identification of the peak shifts observed after solid solution formation.
Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP) was performed on a VARIAN ICP-715ES instrument to confirm the chemical compositions of the Sn-Mn mixed oxide catalysts. As shown in Table 3, the measured Sn/Mn molar ratios of all the catalysts are the same (within experimental error) as the ratios used for the preparation of the samples, proving that there was no evident change of the chemical compositions during the preparation process.
Hydrogen temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR) experiments were performed on a FINESORB 3010 C instrument in a 30 mL/min 10% H2-90% Ar gas mixture flow. Generally, 50 mg of the catalyst was used for the test. Prior to the experiments, the catalysts were re-calcined in a high purity airflow at 300 °C for 30 min to remove any surface impurities. The temperature was then increased from room temperature to 850 °C at a rate of 10 °C/min. A thermal conductivity detector (TCD) was employed to monitor the H2 consumption. CuO (99.99%) was used as the calibration standard for the quantification of the H2 consumption.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images were taken on a Hitachi S-4800 field emission scanning electron microscope.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was performed on a PerkinElmer PHI1600 system using a single Mg Kα X-ray source operating at 300 W and 15 kV. The spectra were obtained at ambient temperature in an ultrahigh vacuum. The binding energy was calibrated using the C 1s peak of graphite at 284.5 eV as a reference [37, 38].
The oxidation of CH4 and CO over the catalysts was evaluated using a U-shaped quartz tube (ID = 6 mm) reactor with a down flow. A K-type thermocouple was placed on top of the catalyst bed with the thermocouple head point touching the catalyst to monitor the reaction temperatures. To measure the light-off behavior of the catalysts, all the data were collected on 100 mg of catalyst by increasing the temperature. For CH4 deep oxidation, the volume composition of the feed gas was 1% CH4-21% O2 and balanced by high purity N2. For CO oxidation, the volume composition of the feed gas was 1% CO-21% O2 and balanced by high purity N2. The flow rates of the feed gases were 30 mL/min, which resulted in GHSV = 18000 mL h-1 g-1 for both CH4 and CO oxidation. The reactants and products were analyzed on-line on a GC9310 gas chromatograph equipped with a TDX-01 column and a TCD detector. Before analysis, the reaction at each temperature point over the catalyst was stabilized for 30 min to obtain steady state reaction data. The flow rate of the H2 carrier gas was 30 mL/min.
For comparison, the activity of the catalysts was evaluated by both CH4 deep oxidation and CO oxidation, as shown in Fig. 1. The CH4 conversion as a function of the reaction temperature over the catalyst is shown in Fig. 1(a). Pure SnO2 displays a certain activity owing to its active surface deficient oxygen and lattice oxygen species [23-27], on which 92% CH4 conversion was achieved at 600 °C. The activity increased after the incorporation of Mn, Zr and Ti oxides. The highest activity was obtained with the Sn-Mn binary oxide catalyst, on which complete CH4 conversion was obtained at 540 °C. However, the introduction of Pb oxide clearly degrades the activity of the resulting catalyst, on which only ~50% CH4 conversion was achieved at 600 °C.
To gain a deeper understanding of the effect of the modification by the different metal oxides, the steady-state CH4 oxidation rates at 420 °C were measured under differential conditions. As shown in Table 1, whereas the CH4 conversion rates on SnZr9-1 and SnTi9-1 are slightly higher than that on pure SnO2, the conversion rate on SnMn9-1 was nearly ten times higher. This strongly confirms that the incorporation of manganese oxide results in the formation of much more active sites on the SnMn9-1 catalyst. On the contrary, the CH4 conversion rate on SnPb9-1 was only about 7% of that on pure SnO2, indicating the addition of lead oxide was detrimental to the surface active sites. The overall activation energy in Table 1 also demonstrates that the activation of the CH4 molecule becomes easier on SnMn9-1, but much more difficult on SnPb9-1.
To further clarify the effect of the modification by the different metal oxides on SnO2, the catalysts were also evaluated by the catalytic oxidation of CO, as shown in Fig. 1(b). Similar modification effects were observed. The addition of Mn, Zr and Ti oxides promoted the CO oxidation activity, but the addition of Pb oxide degraded the activity. The highest CO oxidation activity was also achieved on the SnMn9-1 catalyst.
To investigate the influence of the different metal oxides on the textural properties of SnO2, the catalysts were subjected to N2 adsorption-desorption measurements, with the quantified results listed in Table 1. After calcination at 600 °C, the pure SnO2 had a surface area of 19 m2/g. In contrast, all the catalysts show improved surface areas after the introduction of the secondary metal oxides. Notably, SnPb9-1 had the highest surface area (69 m2/g) among all the catalysts. Considering the fact that this catalyst showed the lowest activity for both CH4 and CO oxidation, it is reasonable to conclude that the surface area is not a critical factor for the activity of the catalysts.
All the samples exhibited type IV isotherms with H2-type hysteresis loops in the relative pressure range of p/p0 = 0.4-0.7, which is typical for a mesoporous structure formed by interparticle assembly. As shown in Table 1, in comparison with pure SnO2, the addition of the secondary metal oxides apparently increases the pore volume but decreases the pore size, indicating that the initial bigger mesopores of SnO2 could have been replaced by a larger amount of smaller mesopores in the modified catalysts. In summary, the addition of the secondary metal oxides evidently alters the initial textural properties of SnO2.
The phase compositions of the catalysts were also analyzed by XRD, as shown in Fig. 2. All the modified catalysts show only the typical diffraction characteristic of a tetragonal rutile SnO2 phase, implying that Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+ cations could have been incorporated into the lattice matrix of SnO2 to form a solid solution structure. In tetragonal rutile SnO2, a Sn4+ cation has a coordination number of 6 and a radius of 0.69 . In this study, XPS was used to confirm that the doping metals are in the forms of Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+, which will be discussed in detail later. If these cations also have a coordination number of 6, their radii are 0.65, 0.72, 0.61 and 0.78 , respectively, which are close to that of Sn4+. According to the basic principles [33, 34], stable solid solutions are theoretically able to be formed between SnO2 and these metal oxides.
To confirm this, the 2θ and d values of the three strongest peaks of the rutile SnO2 phase, peaks (110), (101) and (211), were carefully identified for all the samples, as shown in Table 2. It was found that after the incorporation of different metal oxides the three diffraction peaks shifted slightly and the d values changed somewhat compared with pure SnO2. These changes are typical of solid solution formation, further demonstrating that Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+ cations were doped into the crystal lattice of SnO2 to replace part of the Sn4+ cations to form solid solution structures [39-41]. It has previously been reported that lattice distortion and charge imbalance could take place during the formation of a solid solution structure, thus inducing the formation of more mobile oxygen species and impeding the crystallization of the material at elevated temperatures [23, 30, 41]. As a consequence, more active catalysts with higher thermal stability can generally be achieved [23, 42].
H2-TPR was used to investigate the redox properties of the modified catalysts, with the profiles shown in Fig. 3. Pure SnO2 displays a major peak at 669 °C, which is assigned to the reduction of Sn4+ to metallic Sn0 [23, 26]. After the introduction of the secondary metal cations into the SnO2 lattice to form a solid solution structure, this major reduction peak shifts for all the catalysts. Interestingly, SnMn9-1, the most active catalyst, also shows an additional low temperature peak at 230 °C, which is assigned to the reduction of surface deficient oxygen species [26, 27]. A large amount of deficient oxygen species is generally present on the surface of SnO2, which can be depleted completely after calcination at temperatures above 400 °C [17]. Apparently, the incorporation of Mn3+ cations into the SnO2 lattice can stabilize these surface deficient oxygen species even at high temperatures, which is of advantage for the activity of the catalyst. It is somewhat surprising that the addition of Pb4+ cations into the lattice of SnO2 significantly decreases the reduction temperature and divides the reduction into two parts. However, this catalyst still exhibited the lowest activity among all the catalysts, possibly owing to the nature of Pb as a catalyst poisoner.
As a supplement to the H2-TPR results, XPS was employed to identify the valence states and surface compositions of the samples modified by different metal cations, with the results shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 4(a) presents the Sn 3d signals of all the samples. The doublet peaks at ~494 and ~486 eV are ascribed to Sn 3d3/2 and 3d5/2 for Sn4+, respectively, which is in agreement with the XRD and H2-TPR results, indicating that in all the catalysts, the Sn was fully oxidized and present as Sn4+ [43, 44]. Fig. 4(b) presents the Mn 2p signals of the SnMn9-1 catalyst. The binding energies of Mn 2p1/2 and Mn 2p3/2 are ~653 and ~642 eV, respectively, which are nearly identical to those reported for Mn2O3 [45, 46], proving that Mn3+ cations are dissolved in the lattice matrix. Fig. 4(c) presents the Zr 3d signals of the SnZr9-1 catalyst. A set of doublet peaks at 184.1 and 181.7 eV for Zr 3d3/2 and Zr 3d5/2 respectively, are observed, in agreement with the binding energies reported for ZrO2 [47]. Fig. 4(d) presents the Ti 2p signals of SnTi9-1 catalyst. A set of doublet peaks at 458.7 and 464.4 eV for Ti 2p3/2 and Ti 2p1/2, respectively, are observed, indicating that Ti exists in the Ti4+ oxidation state in a tetragonal structure [48]. Fig. 4(e) presents the Pb 4f spectra of the SnPb9-1 catalyst. A set of doublet peaks at 137.5 and 142.2 eV for Pb 4f7/2 and Pb 4f5/2, respectively, are consistent with the reported binding energies of PbO2 [43, 49, 50].
In summary, the XPS results confirm that in the solid solutions formed by the different metal oxides with rutile SnO2, the secondary metals are present as Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+ in the lattice matrix of SnO2.
As discussed above, SnO2 modified by manganese oxide demonstrates the highest activity among all the catalysts. Incorporation of Mn3+ cations in the lattice matrix of SnO2 to form a stable solid solution can effectively stabilize the surface deficient oxygen species, improve the activity of the lattice oxygen and enhance the thermal stability of the resulting catalyst, which are believed to be the predominant reasons for the significantly improved reaction performance of the SnMn9-1 catalyst. To gain a deeper fundamental understanding of the properties of solid solutions and as an endeavor to optimize the catalyst formulation, Sn-Mn mixed oxides with different Sn/Mn molar ratios were prepared and subjected to CH4 deep oxidation.
The textural properties of the catalysts were first analyzed by the N2 adsorption-desorption method, with the results shown in Table 3. With the combination of SnO2 and Mn2O3, all the catalysts show larger surface areas and pore volumes, but smaller pore sizes and crystallite sizes than those of the two pure samples. The highest surface area of ~56 m2/g was obtained with SnMn9-1 and SnMn8-2 catalysts. The addition of too much manganese oxide clearly has a negative effect on the surface areas.
To gain a better understanding of the effect of modification by Mn2O3 on SnO2, the phase compositions of the Sn-Mn samples with different Sn/Mn molar ratios were analyzed by XRD. As shown in Fig. 5(a), pure SnO2 demonstrates three diffraction peaks at 26.54° (110), 33.86° (101) and 51.90° (211), which are typical for the tetragonal rutile SnO2 phase. In contrast, pure Mn2O3 demonstrates three diffraction peaks at 23.26° (211), 33.02° (222) and 55.28° (440), which are typical of the Mn2O3 phase. For the Sn-Mn binary catalysts, no Mn2O3 phase was detected for Sn/Mn molar ratios above 8/2. However, as the amount of Mn increases in SnMn7-3 (decreasing Sn/Mn molar ratio), the Mn2O3 phase starts to appear and gradually becomes stronger.
As reported previously for Sn-Nb mixed oxides, the SnO2 lattice has a certain capacity for Nb5+ cations, in which only 25% Sn4+ cations can be replaced by Nb5+ to form a stable solid solution. The excess Nb was present as free Nb2O5 on the surface of the catalysts [27]. Therefore, the lattice capacity of SnO2 for Mn3+ was also quantified in this study by the XRD extrapolation method described in this earlier publication.
In detail, the intensity of the strongest peak (222) of Mn2O3 phase (I) for each sample was measured and normalized by that of the strongest peak (110) of the SnO2 phase (I0), which was used as an internal standard to compensate for any possible experimental deviation to obtain reliable I/I0 ratios. The I/I0 ratios were then plotted against the Mn2O3 contents of the samples to obtain a correlated line, as shown in Fig. 5(b). It is noted here that the chemical compositions of the samples were also confirmed by ICP (Table 3). The strict linear line crosses the x-axis at 0.135 g Mn2O3/g SnO2, which is equal to a Sn/Mn molar ratio of 79/21. In other words, to form a stable solid solution, only 21% Sn4+ cations in the crystal lattice of rutile SnO2 can be replaced by Mn3+ cations. Based on this threshold value, it is not difficult to understand that for those samples with Sn/Mn molar ratios higher than 79/21, such as SnMn8-2, SnMn9-1 and SnMn9.5-0.5, only a tetragonal rutile SnO2 phase can be observed. In these samples, Mn3+ cations are completely dissolved into the SnO2 lattice to form solid solutions, thus escaping the detection of XRD. For those samples with Sn/Mn molar ratios lower than 79/21, after the formation of the solid solution the excess Mn forms a Mn2O3 phase, which increases with the increase of Mn content, as evidenced by the gradually increased peak intensities of the Mn2O3 phase.
To gain a deeper insight into the morphologies and microstructures of the Sn-Mn catalysts, some typical samples were analyzed by SEM, as shown in Fig. 6. All the samples consist of irregular spherical particles with different grain sizes. Pure SnO2 has an average particle size of 18 nm, indicating the initial 9.8 nm crystallites agglomerated into bigger particles. Similarly, for SnMn7-3 and SnMn6-4, the two samples with excess manganese oxide, the initial crystallites of ~5 nm also aggregated considerably into much bigger particles with average sizes of approximately 47 and 55 nm, respectively. In contrast, for SnMn9-1 and SnMn8-2, the two samples that completely form a solid solution structure, the aggregation of their initial crystallites was effectively impeded, as evidenced by superfine particles in their SEM images.
The redox properties of the catalysts with different Sn/Mn ratios were also probed by H2-TPR experiments, as shown in Fig. 7. Pure Mn2O3 exhibited two reduction peaks at 351 and 455 °C, which are attributed to the reduction of Mn2O3 to Mn3O4 and Mn3O4 to MnO, respectively [51]. For the Sn rich samples with Sn/Mn molar ratios higher than 79/21, besides the major reduction peak ascribed the reduction of Sn4+ to Sn0 at high temperature, a small reduction peak at ~230 °C was observed, which was ascribed to the reduction of surface deficient oxygen species [17]. No evident reduction of Mn2O3 was observed. For clarity, the enlarged H2-TPR profiles of these catalysts for the reduction of the surface deficient oxygen species are plotted separately and shown as an inset in Fig. 7.
However, starting with the SnMn7-3 catalyst, the peaks due to the reduction of the Mn2O3 phase begin to appear and become more and more evident with increasing Mn content. Indeed, the H2-TPR results in Fig. 7 provide extra evidence that a stable solid solution structure can be formed if the Sn/Mn molar ratios are higher than 79/21. Surface deficient oxygen species can be stabilized at elevated temperatures on the catalysts that contain a complete Sn-Mn solid solution phase without excess Mn2O3, which is believed to be beneficial for the oxidation activity over the catalysts.
The activity of the catalysts was evaluated by CH4 deep oxidation, with the results presented in Fig. 8. Fig. 8(a) shows the CH4 conversion versus temperature profiles of the catalysts, which reflect the overall performance over the catalysts. Pure Mn2O3 shows certain activity to CH4 oxidation because it contains an abundance of active lattice oxygen species. Under the same conditions, pure SnO2 clearly displays lower activity than pure Mn2O3. Interestingly, the Sn rich samples with a complete solid solution structure, such as SnMn9.5-0.5, SnMn9-1 and SnMn8-2, exhibit higher activity than the pure Mn2O3, especially in the low temperature region. In contrast, the samples that contain a Mn2O3 phase show similar activity to pure Mn2O3 at low temperatures, but clearly lower activity at high temperatures. However, all the Sn-Mn binary catalysts are more active than the pure SnO2 catalyst.
The Arrhenius plots of the catalysts, which were achieved under differential conditions and reflect the inherent activity of the catalysts, are shown in Fig. 8(b). Apparently, the catalysts with more Sn-Mn solid solution phase form more active sites for CH4 deep oxidation. The CH4 conversion rates on the catalysts at 420 °C, together with the overall activation energy, are compared in Table 3. The highest CH4 conversion rate was achieved on SnMn9-1. Further increasing the Mn content, which accompanies the formation of more Mn2O3, gradually degrades the conversion rates. It is evident that the presence of excess Mn2O3 is not favorable for the activity of the catalysts. The Sn rich samples that contain only a solid solution phase are more active. It is noted that SnMn9-1, which has a Sn/Mn molar ratio of 9/1, is the most active among all the catalysts.
To investigate the application potential of the catalysts, SnMn9-1 was subject to a long-term stability test at 530 °C in the absence or in the presence of water vapor. As shown in Fig. 9, there was ~13% decrease for the conversion of CH4 after the addition of 5% water vapor. However, there was no evident decline in CH4 conversion during 100 h of continuous testing, either with or without water vapor, proving that this catalyst was not only active, but also resistant to deactivation by water vapor.
SnO2-based catalysts modified by Mn, Zr, Ti and Pb oxides with a Sn/M molar ratio of 9/1 were prepared by a co-precipitation method and used for CH4 and CO oxidation. XRD demonstrates that these secondary metal cations are incorporated into the crystal lattice of tetragonal rutile SnO2 to form a solid solution structure. The valance state of the metals was determined to be Mn3+, Zr4+, Ti4+ and Pb4+, as evidenced by XPS. As a consequence, the surface areas, thermal stability and pore volumes of the catalysts are improved. In addition, the oxygen species of the modified catalysts become easier to be reduced. Therefore, the oxidation activity over the catalysts was improved, except for the one modified by Pb oxide. The incorporation of manganese oxide in the SnO2 lattice demonstrated the best performance enhancement. To gain a deeper understanding and to optimize the catalyst formulation, a series of Sn-Mn mixed oxide catalysts with different Sn/Mn molar ratios were also prepared and subjected to CH4 deep oxidation. Using the XRD extrapolation method, it was revealed that the lattice capacity of SnO2 for Mn2O3 was 0.135 g Mn2O3/g SnO2, which is equal to a Sn/Mn molar ratio of 79/21. If the Sn/Mn molar ratio is below this, the excess Mn would be present as Mn2O3, which is not favorable for the activity of the catalyst. The Sn rich samples with only a Sn-Mn solid solution phase generally show higher activity than the ones with excess Mn2O3 species.
2016,
Vol. 37 Issue (8): 1293-1302 
PDF (1101 KB)
2016,
Vol. 37 Issue (8): 1293-1302 PDF (1101 KB)