Study of the use of fluidized bed plasma reactors for the treatment of alumina supported palladium catalyst: Application for SCR NOx by CH4 in stationary sources

Calcination is an important step in catalyst preparation. We have explored plasma treatment as an alternative to calcination as it is a more energy efficient process. A radio frequency fluidized bed plasma reactor was used for the pretreatment process with different gas mixtures (Ar and Ar/O2 mixtures) over Pd/γ-alumina catalysts generally used in DeNOx processes with CH4. The first catalytic results obtained on plasma treated catalysts clearly evidence that a plasma treatment can replace a “classical calcination” carried out at 500 °C, leading then to a sustainable catalyst preparation for reduction of NOx by hydrocarbons in stationary sources.