Modeling of the catalytic removal of CO and NO under lean-burn conditions: Can there be too much catalyst?

The NO + CO + O2 reaction under net-oxidizing conditions may demonstrate an interesting phenomenon: the conversion of NO to N2 decreases when the amount of catalyst increases. This behavior has been observed in many experimental studies and, as a rule, it has been attributed to the structural sensitivity of the catalytic reaction. Using the classical theories of heterogeneous catalytic reactions and chemical reactors, we demonstrate that this unusual effect can be well explained by the peculiarities of the reaction mechanism and kinetics of competing reactions.

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► We model the NO + CO reaction under lean-burn conditions in CSTR.
► We studied the influence of the catalyst surface area on the NO and CO conversion.
► We showed that the NO conversion can decrease when a catalyst loading increases.
► The underlying kinetic mechanism was explained in details.