In situ infrared study of catalytic decomposition of NO. Second semiannual report, 1996

The growing concerns for the environment and increasingly stringent standards for NO emission have presented a major challenge to control NO emissions from electric utility plants and automobiles. Catalytic decomposition of NO is the most attractive approach for the control of NO emission for its simplicity. Successful development of an effective catalyst for NO decomposition will greatly decrease the equipment and operation cost of NO control. Due to lack of understanding of the mechanism of NO decomposition, efforts on the search of an effective catalyst have been unsuccessful. Scientific development of an effective catalyst requires fundamental understanding of the nature of active site, the rate-limiting step, and an approach to prolong the life of the catalyst. Research is proposed to study the reactivity of adsorbates for the direct NO decomposition and to investigate the feasibility of two novel approaches for improving catalyst activity and resistance to sintering. The first approach is the use of silanation to stabilize metal crystallites and supports for Cu-ZSM-5 and promoted Pt catalysts; the second is utilization of oxygen spillover and desorption to enhance NO decomposition activity. An innovative infrared reactor system will be used to observe and determine the dynamic behavior and the reactivity of adsorbates during NO decomposition, oxygen spillover, and silanation. A series of experiment including X-ray diffraction, temperature programmed desorption, temperature programmed reaction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy will be used to characterize the catalysts. The information obtained from this study will provide a scientific basis for developing an effective catalyst for the NO decomposition under practical flue gas conditions