Synthesis and Physicochemical Characterization of Nanostructured Pt/CeO2 Catalyst Used for Total Oxidation of Toluene

Nanostructured Pt/CeO2 with different loadings of platinum was successfully synthesized via redox reaction along with wet impregnation method. The catalytic performance of the synthesized nanocatalysts was evaluated for abatement of toluene from waste gas stream. The synthesized nanocatalysts were characterized using XRD, FESEM, TEM, N-2 adsorption, FTIR and TPR-H2 techniques. Crystallographic analysis confirmed the formation of CeO2 as crystalline phase with average crystallite size of 10.5 nm. Morphological analysis showed that majority of the synthesized CeO2 particles were less than 100 nm with average particle size of 50.62 nm. TEM analysis illustrated that platinum particles were fairly well dispersed with an average size of 5-15 nm. Specific surface analysis revealed that the synthesized nanocatalysts had large enough surface area for catalytic oxidation of toluene. Temperature programmed reduction profiles indicated that Pt/CeO2 had more reducibility compared to pure ceria. The results of catalytic experiments showed that the synthesized catalysts had the ability to remove 99% of toluene via total oxidation. According to these results, the best loading of Pt on ceria was 0.5 wt% with higher activity compared to pure ceria.