A new strategy for designing highly efficient Co3O4 catalyst with the molecular space configurations for toluene catalytic combustion

An effective strategy was developed to control molecular space configurations and ZIFs’ growth on PAN nanofibers precisely. ZIFs’ size was controlled by regulating pH and N elemens’ coordination environment. Molecular space configurations were controlled by N elemens’ coordination environment. And the well-designed catalyst was applied on the oxidation of toluene. • A new strategy was proposed to control ZIFs’ growth on PAN precisely. • N elements coordination microenvironment could effectively control the molecular space configurations of Co complexes. • The TEA-induced Co 3 O 4 generated more octahedral structure, which is beneficial for the catalytic oxidation of VOCs. Selective exposure of dominant molecular space configurations and controllable synthesis of nanocomposites microstructure are full of challenge in improving the catalyst activity and designing materials. Herein, we precisely designed the size of ZIFs growing on nanofibers by changing the distribution of surface N elements. N elements microenvironment of nanofibers surface influenced not only ZIFs’ growth mechanism, but also its derivatives’ molecular space configurations (octahedral and tetrahedral structure of Co 3 O 4 ). To verify the influence of N element on space configurations, DFT were used to investigate structure preference energy (SPE). The result showed that the TEA (triethylamine)-induced method showed a big difference between octahedral and tetrahedral structure, indicating that this method was easier to generate octahedral complexes. Its derived Co 3 O 4 catalysts with more Co 3+ spieces showed the best catalytic performance (T 90 only 220 °C). Based on this, exposure of molecular space configurations will no longer be random but manipulable. The establishment of this new strategy will play an important role in the future catalyst design and realize the adjustable and controllable catalyst.