Low-Temperature Oxidation of Toluene over MnO x -CeO 2 Nanorod Composites with High Sinter Resistance: Dual Effect of Synergistic Interaction on Hydrocarbon Adsorption and Oxygen Activation.

Synergistic interaction derived by a heterointerface structure on the surface of metal oxide catalysts has a crucial role in improving the catalytic activity. In this work, MnO x nanoparticles were dispersed on the surface of CeO 2 nanorods to generate a MnO x -CeO 2 heterointerface structure, and its effect on toluene adsorption and catalytic oxidation performance was investigated. The results show that MnO x is well dispersed on CeO 2 nanorods, and the interaction of Mn-Ce significantly reduces the strength of the Ce-O bond and increases the conversion of Ce 4+ to Ce 3+ , which further promotes the activation of oxygen. Compared to MnO x on SiO 2 without synergistic interaction, the enhancement of toluene adsorption on this novel MnO x -CeO 2 hetero-interface structure can also make a great contribution to the improvement of the catalytic reaction process. Among them, the synergistic effect of CeO 2 -MnO x could reduce the temperature of 90% toluene conversion to 210 °C (this value is 83 °C lower than that over pure CeO 2 nanorods). In addition, the fresh MnO x -CeO 2 catalyst not only shows excellent stability and moisture resistance but also retains highly low-temperature activity even after thermal aging at 750 °C for 100 h.