Catalytic Destruction of a Surrogate Organic Hazardous Air Pollutant as a Potential Co-benefit for Coal-Fired Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems

Abstract

Catalytic destruction of benzene (C6H6), a surrogate for organic hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) produced from coal combustion, was investigated using a commercial selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst for evaluating the potential co-benefit of the SCR technology for reducing organic HAP emissions. Bench-scale experiments were performed using simulated coal combustion flue gases under a broad range of SCR reaction conditions. C6H6 was added at 1 or 17 ppm into the flue gas mixtures with different concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NO), hydrogen chloride (HCl), and ammonia (NH3) to simulate the combustion of bituminous and sub-bituminous coals. The destruction of the C6H6 across the catalyst was measured by a total hydrocarbon analyzer and a resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (REMPI–TOFMS) for the experiments with high (17 ppm) and low (1 ppm) concentrations of C6H6, respectively. The operating parameters of the SCR process, including the ...