Tuning the K⁺ Concentration in the Tunnels of α-MnO₂ to Increase the Content of Oxygen Vacancy for Ozone Elimination

α-MnO₂ is a promising material for ozone catalytic decomposition and the oxygen vacancy is often regarded as the active site for ozone adsorption and decomposition. Here, α-MnO₂ nanowire with tunable K⁺ concentration was prepared through a hydrothermal process in KOH solution. High concentration K⁺ in the tunnel can expand crystal cell and break the charge balance, leading to a lower average oxidation state (AOS) of Mn, which means abundant oxygen vacancy. DFT calculation has also proven that the samples with higher K⁺ concentration exhibit lower formation energy for oxygen vacancy. Due to the enormous active oxygen vacancies existing in the α-MnO₂ nanowire, the lifetime of the catalyst (corresponding to 100% ozone removal rate, 25 °C) is increased from 3 to 15 h. The FT-IR results confirmed that the accumulation of intermediate oxygen species on the catalyst surface is the main reason why it is deactivated after long time reaction. In this work, the performance of the catalyst has been improved because the abundant active oxygen vacancies are fabricated by the electrostatic interaction between oxygen atoms inside the tunnels and the introduced K⁺, which offers us a new perspective to design a high efficiency catalyst and may promote manganese oxide for practical ozone elimination.