Formaldehyde is regarded as the major indoor air pollutant. Because of harmful effect on human health, its emission abatement is of significant practical interest. We report here excellent low-temperature catalytic performances of mesoporous MnOx-CeO2 catalysts in the process of formaldehyde oxidation. These MnOx-CeO2 catalysts were synthesized by a "nanocasting" method using SBA-15 as hard template. TEM images showed that the as-fabricated MnOx-CeO2 composites possess well-ordered mesoporous architectures. Results of catalytic tests revealed that mesoporous MnOx-CeO2 nanocomposites have excellent low-temperature catalytic activity for formaldehyde oxidation, the temperature for 100% formaldehyde conversion can be as low as 65°C over these noble-metal-free mesoporous catalysts. The excellent catalytic performance is attributed to their ordered mesoporous structures that expose abundant active sites to formaldehyde molecules.

International Journal of Nanoscience, 2015