CeO nanowires self-inserted into porous CoO frameworks as high-performance "noble metal free" hetero-catalysts.

Recently, mixed metal oxides have attracted tremendous interest because of their great importance for fundamental studies and practical applications in the catalytic field to replace expensive noble metals. Herein, we report the designed synthesis of novel CeO-CoO mixed metal oxides with complex nanostructures using uniform short CeO nanowires self-inserted into ZIF-67 nanocrystals as precursors followed by a thermal annealing treatment. Interestingly, such a synthetic strategy can be easily extended to fabricate other CeO nanowires inserted into metal oxide nanoframeworks such as NiCoO and ZnCoO. Choosing the NO reduction reaction by CO as the catalytic model, the as-obtained CeO-CoO hybrids exhibited enhanced catalytic performance, which could be attributed to the strong two-phase interaction between each component.