“…The Cu 2p 3/2 binding energy values in the oxidized catalysts are in the range of 932.6-933.8 eV with Cu 2p 3/2 -2p 1/2 spin-orbit splitting of 20.0 ± 0.1 eV, characteristic of CuO. [38][39][40][41] The shake-up satellites at ∼942 eV and ∼962 eV are attributed to shake-up transitions by ligand-to-metal 3d charge transfer 41 43,44 According to the literature, higher Cu 2p binding energies (in the range of 933.4-934.5 eV) are associated with a higher percentage of copper in octahedral coordination, 45,46 while lower values show a higher percentage of tetrahedrally coordinated copper cations. 47 Therefore, the shift of the binding energy of Cu 2+ to higher values in the K-CuMnAl catalyst can be related to both the coordination of 44,48 In addition to the main peak, the Cu 2p spectrum of the K-CuMnAl catalyst features an additional shoulder at lower binding energy.…”