Magnesium borate whiskers/La2-XCeXZr2O7 catalysts preparation on cordierite honeycomb ceramic surfaces for soot catalytic oxidation͏

Magnesium borate whiskers were used to prepare a hierarchical microstructure on cordierite ceramic substrate through the precipitation-molten salt method. The La2-XCeXZr2O7 catalyst was then loaded onto the magnesium borate whiskers to form the hierarchical microstructure. The Ce-doped catalysts exhibited a significant improvement in the catalytic activity of soot combustion compared to the La2Zr2O7 catalyst. The study employed various techniques to characterize the structural morphology and phase composition, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The growth of Magnesium borate whiskers (Mg2B2O5) with diameters of 100-200 nm and lengths of 2-5 μm were grown and tightly bonded to the cordierite ceramic substrate to mimic the structure of human respiratory system cilia. This could improve the filtration efficiency of soot in car exhaust. BET analysis showed that the specific surface area of cordierite increased from 0.684 m2/g to 1.363 m2/g after whisker growth. The study confirmed that the whiskers were firmly attached to the cordierite ceramic substrate, as demonstrated by the binding strength experiments. The addition of Ce metal has been found to significantly enhance soot combustion due to the presence of more active oxygen species and superior mobility of lattice oxygen species with more oxygen vacancies. The catalyst's intrinsic redox property was characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and H2 temperature-programmed reduction (H2-TPR). The semi-quantitative thermogravimetric analysis (TG-DTG) and the temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) of catalysts showed that Z-La1.9Ce0.1Zr2O7 exhibited the highest catalytic activity for soot combustion, with an ignition temperature of 268 °C, a peak temperature of 418 °C, and a temperature of 90% soot conversion of 464 °C. Furthermore, cyclic stability experiments demonstrate that the Z-La1.9Ce0.1Zr2O7 catalyst exhibits excellent structural stability and consistent catalytic performance. This distinctive microstructure holds great potential for applications in the field of DPF.