Oxygen vacancies-promoted removal of COS via catalytic hydrolysis over CuTiO2-δ nanoflowers

Catalytic hydrolysis was considered as an efficient technology to remove carbonyl sulfide (COS). The introduction of oxygen vacancy (Ov) is a promising strategy to improve the catalytic performance of COS hydrolysis by promoting the adsorption and activation of reactants. Herein, we reported a Cu-doped TiO2 nanoflower with abundant oxygen vacancies for COS hydrolysis. The Cu species successfully entered the crystal lattice of TiO2 and induced more oxygen vacancies than pure TiO2. The Ov sites can effectively reduce the adsorption and activation energy of COS and H2O. Benefiting from the ample Ov sites, the resulting CuTiO2-δ-F achieved nearly 100 % COS conversion at 70 °C and 93.5 % H2S yield at 130 °C, which is better than that of pure TiO2. Furthermore, in situ FT-IR measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to reveal the reaction pathway in COS hydrolysis.