A comparative study of Mn/CeO2, Mn/ZrO2 and Mn/Ce-ZrO2 for low temperature selective catalytic reduction of NO with NH3 in the presence of SO2 and H2O

Ce-ZrO2 is a widely used three-way catalyst support. Because of the large surface area and excellent redox quality, Ce-ZrO2 may have potential application in selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems. In the present work, Ce-ZrO2 was introduced into a low-temperature SCR system and CeO2 and ZrO2 supports were also introduced to make a contrastive study. Mn/CeO2, Mn/ZrO2 and Mn/Ce-ZrO2 were prepared by impregnating these supports with Mn(NO3)2 solution, and have been characterized by N2-BET, XRD, TPR, TPD, XPS, FT-IR and TG. The activity and resistance to SO2 and H2O of the catalysts were investigated. Mn/Ce-ZrO2 and Mn/CeO2 were proved to have better low-temperature activities than Mn/ZrO2, and yielded 98.6% and 96.8% NO conversion at 180°C, respectively. This is mainly because Mn/Ce-ZrO2 and Mn/CeO2 had higher dispersion of manganese oxides, better redox properties and more weakly adsorbed oxygen species than Mn/ZrO2. In addition, Mn/Ce-ZrO2 showed a good resistance to SO2 and H2O and presented 87.1% NO conversion, even under SO2 and H2O treatment for 6 hours, and the activity of Mn/Ce-ZrO2 was almost restored to its original level after cutting off the injection of SO2 and H2O. This was due to the weak water absorption and weak sulfation process on the surface of the catalyst.