Boosting propene oxidation activity over LaFeO3 perovskite catalysts by cobalt substitution

To develop robust and cost-effective catalysts for propene total oxidation, LaFe1−xCoxO3 (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 1) perovskites were prepared via a citrate sol-gel method. XRD, FTIR and Raman analyses suggested that after cobalt substitution, the LaFeO3 structure was well maintained, whereas abundant lattice distortions were generated accompanied by weaker Fe−O bond. H2-TPR and O2-TPD results demonstrated that cobalt incorporation led to better reducibility and higher oxygen mobility of the oxides. The propene oxidation activity of the catalysts was found to increase with the cobalt content, which correlated well with the amount of surface-active oxygen species. The optimal catalyst LaFe0.8Co0.2O3 presented comparable activity to LaCoO3 at much lower cost. Moreover, it showed excellent cyclability (6 cycles) and stability (35 h), decent performance at high space velocity (24,0000 mL g–1 h–1) or in the presence of 5 vol% water, thereby being a promising candidate for industrial application.