Sulfur Migration Enhanced Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer for Efficient CO Desorption with Core-Shelled C@MnO.

Transforming hazardous species into active sites by ingenious material design was a promising and positive strategy to improve catalytic reactions in industrial applications. To synergistically address the issue of sluggish CO desorption kinetics and SO-poisoning solvent of amine scrubbing, we propose a novel method for preparing a high-performance core-shell C@MnO catalyst for heterogeneous sulfur migration and in situ reconstruction to active -SOH groups, and thus inducing an enhanced proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) effect for CO desorption. As anticipated, the rate of CO desorption increases significantly, by 255%, when SO is introduced. On a bench scale, dynamic CO capture experiments reveal that the catalytic regeneration heat duty of SO-poisoned solvent experiences a 32% reduction compared to the blank case, while the durability of the catalyst is confirmed. Thus, the enhanced PCET of C@MnO, facilitated by sulfur migration and simultaneous transformation, effectively improves the SO resistance and regeneration efficiency of amine solvents, providing a novel route for pursuing cost-effective CO capture with an amine solvent.