Pilot-scale evaluation of a novel TiO2-supported V2O5 catalyst for DeNOx at low temperatures at a waste incinerator

The removal of NOx by catalytic technology at low temperatures is significant for treatment of flue gas in waste incineration plants, especially at temperatures below 200 °C. A novel highly active TiO2-supported vanadium oxide catalyst at low temperatures (200-250 °C) has been developed for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) de-NOx process with ammonia. The catalyst was evaluated in a pilot-scale equipment, and the results were compared with those obtained in our previous work using laboratory scale (small volume test) equipment as well as bench-scale laboratory equipment. In the present work, we have performed our experiments in pilot scale equipment using a part of effluent flue gas that was obtained from flue gas cleaning equipment in a full-scale waste incineration plant in South Korea. Based on our previous work, we have prepared a TiO2-supported V2O5 catalyst coated (with a loading of 7 wt% of impregnated V2O5) on a honeycomb cordierite monolith to remove NOx from a waste incinerator flue gas at low temperatures. The NOx (nitrogen oxides) removal efficiency of the SCR catalyst bed was measured in a catalyst fixed-bed reactor (flow rate: 100 m3 h−1) using real exhaust gas from the waste incinerator. The experimental results showed that the V2O5/TiO2 SCR catalyst exhibited good DeNOx performance (over 98% conversion at an operating temperature of 300 °C, 95% at 250 °C, and 70% at 200 °C), and was much better than the performance of commercial SCR catalysts (as low as 55% conversion at 250 °C) under the same operating conditions.