Simultaneous soot combustion and NOx reduction over a vanadia-based selective catalytic reduction catalyst

Simultaneous NOx reduction and soot combustion over a commercial vanadia-based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst were investigated. Carbon black was used as model soot. The impact of the contact intensity between carbon and catalyst was studied. The experiments appeared as promising results for the utilization of vanadia-based SCR catalysts in SCR on filter system as, in the SCR operating temperature range (250-400 °C), no significant impact of the presence of carbon black on NOx reduction was observed. However, a decrease in the specific carbon oxidation rate was highlighted. This latter increases with the contact between carbon and catalyst and is attributed to a lack of NO2, consumed by the fast SCR reaction. At temperatures greater than 400 °C, the contact between carbon particles and the SCR catalyst partially inhibits the NOx reduction, whereas it exhibits a catalytic effect on the carbon oxidation rate. The tighter the contact between the two materials, the more significant is this behavior. A redox mechanism, which competes with the redox cycle of the SCR mechanism, was proposed. The impregnation of a V-based SCR catalyst with 2 wt % of calcium was also performed. A drastic loss of DeNOx activity was observed, whereas the effect of the contact between carbon and catalyst was reduced.