Remaining Challenges to the Commercialization of Hydrocarbon Selective Reduction

Robbie  Burch, Queen’s University Belfast

Robbie Burch*, Christopher Hardacre and Sarayute Chansai
CenTACat, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen?s University Belfast, Northern. Ireland, United Kingdom
r.burch@qub.ac.uk

Alumina-supported silver catalysts have been known for a number of years to be very active for the reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) under lean-burn conditions. Of particular interest has been the possibility that the on-board fuel could be used as the hydrocarbon reductant. However, there are still some barriers to the introduction of these catalysts as an alternative to urea-SCR or lean NOx traps (LNT). In particular, the activity at the lower end of the temperature range needs to be increased, and the tolerance to sulfur in the fuel needs to be improved. In this presentation we will describe recent work that addresses both these challenges. In the first case, namely low temperature activity, modifications in the preparation of the catalyst and in the operation of the catalyst have been investigated and substantial improvements have been observed. In the case of sulfur tolerance, fundamental work has been undertaken to understand the basic poisoning effect of sulfur, to investigate the extent to which the catalysts can be regenerated, and to investigate catalyst and process modifications to increase the sulfur tolerance. This basic research has provided understanding of key features in the application of these catalysts and the outputs continue to be inputs to the on-going work to commercialize these catalysts for large diesel engine applications in the first instance.

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