The poisoning effect of PbO on Mn-Ce/TiO2 catalyst for selective catalytic reduction of NO with NH3 at low temperature

Lead oxide (PbO) as one of the typical heavy metals in flue gas from power plants has strong accumulation as well as poisoning effects on SCR catalysts. In this paper, a series of PbO-doped Mn-Ce/TiO2 catalysts were synthesized by impregnation method. The poisoning effects of PbO over Mn-Ce/TiO2 samples for selective catalytic reduction of NO by NH3 were investigated based on catalytic activity test and characterizations. The NO conversion of Mn-Ce/TiO2 was greatly decreased after the addition of PbO. It was obvious that the NO conversion efficiency of Mn-Ce/TiO2 catalyst declined from 96.75% to about 40% at 200 °C when Pb:Mn molar ratio reached 0.5. Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Hydrogen temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR), Ammonia temperature programmed desorption (NH3-TPD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were carried out to study the deactivation reasons of PbO poisoned catalysts. Manganese oxides' crystallization, less reducible of manganese and cerium oxides, the decreasing of surface area, Mn4+ as well as Ce3+ concentration and chemisorbed oxygen (Ob) after the introduction of PbO, all of these resulted in a poor SCR performance. Furthermore, the alteration of acid sites (especially Brönsted acid sites), low ammonia adsorbance, an obvious reducing of ad-NOx species (only a spot of bidentate nitrates remained) and the vanishing of amide species contributed to the deactivation of Mn-Ce/TiO2 catalyst by PbO doping as well.