Enhancing the denitration performance and anti-K poisoning ability of CeO2-TiO2/P25 catalyst by H2SO4 pretreatment: structure-activity relationship and mechanism study

Abstract As we know, CeO2-TiO2 catalyst exhibits excellent denitration performance for NH3-SCR reaction, while its resistance to alkali metals poisoning is very poor. Therefore, the further enhancement of denitration performance and anti-alkali poisoning ability of CeO2-TiO2 catalyst is a significant research topic. In the present work, we loaded CeO2-TiO2 component on a commercial P25 support to prepare CeO2-TiO2/P25 (i.e., CT/P25) catalyst, and then used a simple H2SO4 pretreatment to obtain H2SO4-pretreated CT/P25 (i.e., S-CT/P25) catalyst. Moreover, the influence of H2SO4 pretreatment on the physicochemical property, denitration performance, and anti-K poisoning ability of CT/P25 catalyst was systematically investigated. The obtained results indicate that H2SO4 pretreatment not only enhances the high-temperature denitration performance of CT/P25 catalyst for NH3-SCR reaction due to the improvement of surface acidity, but also significantly strengthens the its anti-K poisoning ability. Finally, S-CT/P25 catalyst also exhibits relatively strong tolerance of H2O + SO2 even after K poisoning.