A comparative study of the selective oxidation of NH 3 to N 2 over gold, silver and copper catalysts and the effect of addition of Li 2O and CeO x

Abstract

This paper describes the selective oxidation of ammonia into nitrogen over copper, silver and gold catalysts between room temperature and 400 ° C using different NH 3/O 2 ratios. The effect of addition of CeO x and Li 2O on the activity and selectivity is also discussed. The results show that copper and silver are very active and selective toward N 2. However the multicomponent catalysts: M/Li 2O/CeO x /Al 2O 3 (M: Au, Ag, Cu) perform the best. On all three metal containing catalysts the activity and selectivity is influenced by the particle size and the interaction between metal particles and support.