Preparation and characterization of electrospun La1-xCexCoOδ: Application to catalytic oxidation of benzene

An electrospinning with calcination process was employed for the synthesis of La1-xCexCoO delta (x=0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0) oxides. These catalysts were investigated in terms of total benzene oxidation, and characterized by means of XRD, BET, H-2-TPR, SEM, XPS, and TEM techniques. The results show that the amount of Ce doping obviously affects the physicochemical and catalytic properties of La1-xCexCoO delta, and when x = 1.0, CeCoO delta exhibits the best activity and highly thermal durability for catalytic oxidation of benzene. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the increased activity over perovskite phase dominated oxides is ascribed to a larger surface area while the activity enhancement over metal oxides mainly results from a higher valance of Co and better redox property. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.