Evaluation of Non-Noble Metal Catalysts for CO Oxidation

Abstract: The aim of the study is to evaluate the ability of non-noble metal catalysts to function as the commercially used noble metal catalyst. The exhaust gas that was used in the project is generated from a heater developed by ReformTech AB with diesel as fuel. The compound that was focused on is carbon monoxide that has a concentration of 300-750 ppm. The catalysts that were tested are MnO/CeO2, CuO/CeO2 and a Pt/CeO2 catalyst used to compare the non-noble metal catalyst with. The sensitivity against sulfur poisoning was also analyzed by mixing sulfur into the fuel. Analysis of the exhaust gas was done with a micro-GC and the catalysts were also analyzed with SEM before and after exposure of sulfur.   The manganese catalyst with a loading of 7 wt-% did not show any activity against carbon monoxide oxidation. The copper catalysts contained two different loadings of active material, 7 and 14 wt-% and monoliths with 400 and 600 cpsi were used. Both loadings showed good activity against carbon monoxide oxidation.   The most prominent catalyst was the 14 wt-% CuO/CeO2 catalyst with a 600 cpsi monolith because of an increase in surface area. The SEM analysis showed that sulfur was present on the surface when the heater was using diesel with 300 ppm sulfur. The sulfur caused complete deactivation of the non-noble metal catalysts and a small decrease in activity was shown on the noble metal Pt catalyst.