A kinetic study of the NO to NO2 oxidation mechanism over Fe-FER: A combined analysis of operando surface and gas phase data

Abstract

Abstract Diesel engines when compared with gasoline engines produce higher amount of NOx due the operating conditions. Among the NOx produced NO represents the great majority while, under air excess conditions, the removal of NOx is necessarily catalytic and still challenging. In the ammonia based SCR, it is often admitted that, when dealing with the original formulation developed for stationary sources (V/TiO2), the fast SCR proceeds in presence of an equimolar mixture of NO and NO2. Most of the catalytic formulations developed up to now (except Cu based zeolites) thus suffer the same rate determining step consisting in the NO to NO2 oxidation. Aiming at improving the catalytic efficiency through the catalyst composition, it is fundamental to understand the reaction mechanism at its elementary steps in order to properly design the active sites. The choice regarding the distinct possible hypothetical mechanisms was thus here guided by the nature of the active sites. It is indeed worth knowing, for a better tuning of the catalyst formulation, whether isolated, oligomeric or dual iron sites are involved in the catalytic loop. The approach in this work consists in a systematic study of the influence of the inlet NO concentration under O2 excess on both the initial reaction rate (NO to NO2 conversion level kept below 10%) and the NO coverage level onto iron measured by operando FTIR. Isothermal experiments were performed over an aged FeFER catalyst at three distinct temperatures. The whole set of data was then processed and compared to the expected evolution derived from five possible mechanisms. The best mechanism determined in the frame of this study involves isolated iron sites onto which NO and O2 co-adsorb and the corresponding rate determining step consists in the dissociation of the so-formed Fe_NOO2 intermediate species. The associated activation energy and reaction enthalpy values are then evaluated.