Ammonia formation over Pd/Al2O3 modified with cerium and barium

• Ce and Ba modified Pd/Al2O3 is promising for passive-SCR.
• Ce addition increases water-gas-shift activity.
• Ce allows temporary NH3 formation in slightly oxidizing global conditions.
• Ba addition increases transient NH3 formation at high temperature.

We report experimental results for ammonia formation from nitric oxide and either a direct source of hydrogen or from a mixture of carbon monoxide and water over palladium based catalysts. Specifically, the addition of barium or cerium into an alumina supported palladium sample was studied. Static and transient flow reactor experiments were performed in order to identify the effects of temperature and the presence of oxygen on the activity for ammonia formation. Modification of Pd/Al2O3 with cerium proved to be beneficial for the activity due mainly to its enhancement of the water-gas-shift reaction, thus providing a higher availability of hydrogen for ammonia formation, but also because it remains active in the presence of slightly oxidizing global conditions when hydrogen is provided directly to the feed. Although the modification of Pd/Al2O3 with barium did not affect the ammonia formation during static conditions, the activity during lean/rich cycling increased. This is important for applications of passive selective catalytic reduction.

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