Weak sunlight-driven mass toluene combustion through scalable Cu doped CeO2 microspheres

Sunlight-driven toluene elimination system faces the problems of low reaction rate, secondary pollution, and especially tricky to large-scale production. In this work, we used a PVP assisted spray drying method to synthesize Cu doped CeO 2 microspheres with the merits of zero waste water and solids discharge, kilogram level yield, uniform dispersion of Cu, and high toluene combustion activity. Further, a new photothermal device was constructed to heat catalysts to 295 °C under one standard sunlight irradiation. As a result, the new photothermal device supported Cu doped CeO 2 microspheres showed a full oxidation of toluene at the rate of 59.82 mmol g −1 h −1 under 1 sun irradiation, 150 times higher than the advanced sunlight-driven toluene elimination. An industrial demonstration of this new system was developed, and this system was able to completely deal with 22.2 m 3  h −1 of exhaust with the toluene concentration of 1–10,000 ppm under 1 m 2 of outdoor sunlight irradiation in the daytime of winter, showing the potential on industrial applications.