To be support or promoter: the mode of introducing ceria into commercial V2O5/TiO2 catalyst for enhanced Hg0 oxidation

Ce-modified commercial vanadium-based catalysts are still in a rapid development stage in terms of optimizing Hg0 oxidation performance. Due to the universal property of ceria, it can act as either support or promoter to supported vanadium-based catalysts. However, the introduction mode of Ce on the Hg0 oxidation is still unclarified. Herein, introducing Ce to vanadium-based catalysts as a promoter (VCe/Ti) plays a more effective role in the Hg0 oxidation than only doping Ce into TiO2 support (V/CeTi). It is revealed that the strong interaction between V and Ce increases the orbital hybridization, and reduces the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of V, which is conducive to adsorbing and activating HCl. The excellent performance of the VCe/Ti catalyst can be ascribed to its superior redox ability, stronger HCl adsorption capacity, abundant surface oxygen vacancies, and the redox equilibrium (Ce3+ + V5+ ↔ Ce4+ + V4+), which improves electron transfer, and thus the catalytic activity. This work provides the potential application of Ce-modified V-based catalysts for the simultaneous control of NOx and Hg0 in stationary sources.