Fabrication of acid-activated dispersive palygorskite nanorods supported copper manganese composite oxide for catalytic oxidation of toluene

The acid-activated dispersive palygorskite nanorods supported copper manganese composite oxide (CuMn/PG) was synthesized for catalytic oxidation of toluene. The palygorskite nanorods with higher purity were purified, separated and acid-activated by natural palygorskite. The pretreated palygorskite was used as the support to prepare CuMn/PG with large specific surface area, controllable morphology, adjustable size, and excellent catalytic activity through the regulation of a variety of surfactants in the process of co-precipitation. When non-ionic polyethylene glycol (PEG) was used as the surfactant, the copper-manganese oxide exhibited good dispersibility on the palygorskite nanorods. The CuMn/PG catalysts with different ratios prepared presented larger specific surface areas, which effectively solved the problem of small specific surface area of copper manganese oxide catalyst. Among them, the CuMn/PG catalyst with a copper-manganese molar ratio of 1:1 formed CuMn 2 O 4 spinel structure phase to enhance the catalysis of toluene with low temperatures of T 50 (195 °C) and T 90 (210 °C). At the same time, the CuMn/PG exhibited good stability. the removal rate of toluene still reached 98.5% after continuous operation for 60 h.