Direct synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance of Al–Fe-SBA-15 materials in selective catalytic reduction of NO with NH3

•Al–Fe-SBA-15 with varied Fe, Al loading was synthesized by microwave methods.•The introduction of Al can result in the generation of Brönsted acid sites.•The amount of Brönsted acid sites reached the maximum for Al(0.07)–Fe(0.03)-SBA-15.•Al–Fe-SBA-15 can be used effectively in NH3-SCR due to Brönsted acid sites.

A series of Al–Fe-SBA-15 catalysts were synthesized by microwave methods with various iron and aluminum contents. The samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, NH3-TPD, FT-IR. Results indicated that all the samples that exhibited well-ordered hexagonal arrays of mesopores, disk-like and petal-like morphologies were observed for different catalysts. NH3-TPD indicated that the introduction of Al results in the generation of Brönsted acid originated from Al–OH. Brönsted acid played important roles in the selective catalytic reduction of NO by NH3, NOx conversion over Al–Fe-SBA-15 samples increased rapidly as temperature increased and achieved 95% at about 360 °C.

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