A comparative study of the selective oxidation of NH3 to N2 over gold, silver and copper catalysts and the effect of addition of Li2O and CeOx

This paper describes the selective oxidation of ammonia into nitrogen over copper, silver and gold catalysts between room temperature and 400 °°C using different NH3/O2 ratios. The effect of addition of CeOx and Li2O on the activity and selectivity is also discussed. The results show that copper and silver are very active and selective toward N2. However the multicomponent catalysts: M/Li2O/CeOx/Al2O3 (M: Au, Ag, Cu) perform the best. On all three metal containing catalysts the activity and selectivity is influenced by the particle size and the interaction between metal particles and support.