Role of Brønsted acidity in NH3 selective catalytic reduction reaction on Cu/SAPO-34 catalysts

•Cu/SAPO-34 catalysts with varying amounts of Brønsted acid sites were synthesized.•The number of Brønsted acid sites was estimated via acid site generation mechanism.•DRIFTS measurements were used for quantification of Brønsted acid sites.

In the present work, a series of Cu/SAPO-34 catalysts with varying number of Brønsted acid sites has been prepared by ion exchanging with potassium to investigate the role of Brønsted acidity in the NH3-SCR reaction. The impact of potassium on the structural and acidic properties of Cu/SAPO-34 catalysts has been studied. No significant changes in both the SAPO-34 structure and the copper species were observed in the presence of potassium. With increasing potassium loading, the NH3-SCR activity of the Cu-K/SAPO-34 catalysts decreased in accordance with the decreasing Brønsted acidity. The quantification method of Brønsted acid sites in the Cu-(K)/SAPO-34 was developed by using IR spectroscopy, which was confirmed by acid site generation mechanism and NH3-TPD results. A linear relationship was found between the amounts of Brønsted OH groups determined by DRIFTS and the NH3 desorbed at high temperatures from NH3-TPD.

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