Engineering the Nucleophilic Active Oxygen Species in CuTiOx for Efficient Low-Temperature Propene Combustion

Industrialization has resulted in the rapid increase of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, which have caused serious issues to human health and the environment. In this study, an extensive Cu incorporating TiO₂ induced nucleophilic oxygen structure was constructed in the CuTiO_x catalyst, which exhibited superior low-temperature catalytic activity for C₃H₆ combustion. Thorough structural, surface characterization and density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the Cu-O-Ti hybridization induced nucleophilic oxygen initiates C₃H₆ combustion by abstracting the C-H bond. In situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) results indicated that incorporated copper species acted as the major adsorbent site for the propene molecule. In combination of the DRIFTS and DFT results, the promotion effect of the nucleophilic O on the C-H bond abstraction and CO₂ formation pathway was proposed. The surface doping induced nucleophilic oxygen as strong Brønsted basic sites for low-temperature propene combustion exemplified an efficient strategy for rational design of next-generation environmental catalysts.