Superior performance of iron-doped manganese dioxide for low-temperature propane oxidation

Iron-doped manganese dioxide has attracted extensive attention in the abatement of propane, but the application potential at low temperatures remains a challenge. Here, a series of low-content Fe-doped manganese dioxide were fabricated via a facile precipitation method with the molecular ratios of Fe:Mn ranging from 1:20 to 1:100 which were named Fe1Mn20, Fe1Mn25, Fe1Mn50, Fe1Mn100, respectively. For all the prepared catalysts, propane can achieve 10%, 50%, and 90% conversion at lower temperatures and the Fe1Mn50 catalyst realizes the most superior catalytic activity with T90 of 230 °C. The Fe1Mn50 catalyst also exhibits good stability within a continuous experiment of 30 hours at 230 °C. The characterization of prepared catalysts reveals that iron doping stimulated the formation of oxygen vacancy defect, introduced good oxygen mobility in the catalyst, and hence increased the catalytic performance. The remarkably enhanced catalytic performance of manganese dioxide suggests that trace amount doping of transition metal is an effective strategy to develop more active metal oxide catalysts.