Comparison of titania nanotubes and titanium dioxide as supports of low-temperature selective catalytic reduction catalysts under sulfur dioxide poisoning

Abstract

ABSTRACTA series of iron–manganese oxide catalysts supported on TiO2 and titanium nanotubes (TNTs) were studied for low temperature selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO with NH3 in the presence of SO2. The results showed that the specific surface area and the amount of Brønsted acid sites were highly correlated. The results also demonstrated that higher Mn4+/Mn3+ ratios and larger specific surface areas might be the main reasons for the excellent performance of MnFe-TNTs catalyst after SO2 poisoning. The SO2 poisoning effect could be minimized by reducing the GHSV, increasing the reaction temperature, or increasing the [NH3]/[NO] molar ratio. The results also indicated that the formation of ammonium sulfate had a stronger effect on the NO conversion efficiency as compared to the formation of metal sulfate. Thus operating the low temperature SCR at above 230 oC to avoid the formation of ammonium sulfate would be the priority choice when SO2 poisoning is a concerned issue. Implications: Low-temperature selective catalytic reduction (SCR) has attracted increasing attention due to that it can reduce the energy consumption for the SCR process employed in industries such as steel plants and glass manufacturing plants. However, it also suffers from the sulfur dioxide (SO2) poisoning problem. This study investigates the possibility of using titania nanotubes (TNTs) as the support of Mn/Fe bimetal oxide catalysts for low-temperature SCR to reduce the SO2 poisoning. The results indicated that the MnFe-TNT catalyst can tolerate SO2 for a longer time as compared with the MnFe-TiO2 catalyst.