Oxygen vacancy-rich nitrogen-doped CoO nanosheets as an efficient water-resistant catalyst for low temperature CO oxidation.

Over the past decade, there has been significant research of CoO catalysts for oxidation of carbon mono-oxide (CO) at low temperatures. However, development of water-resistant CoO materials is still challenging. In this work, a novel oxygen vacancy-rich nitrogen-doped CoO catalyst was developed using straightforward urea-assisted method. Nitrogen doping increases oxygen vacancies on the surface in CoO as well as improves the activity of lattice oxygen. Comparing with pure CoO and CoO with less nitrogen doping, the as-synthesized nitrogen-doped CoO exhibited significantly enhanced activity as well as water resistance in the catalytic oxidation of CO. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of CO oxidation on N-doped CoO, which provides a new strategy for developing highly active and water-resistant catalysts.