High performance vanadia–anatase nanoparticle catalysts for the Selective Catalytic Reduction of NO by ammonia

Highly active nanoparticle SCR deNOX catalysts composed of amorphous vanadia on crystalline anatase have been prepared by a sol–gel, co-precipitation method using decomposable crystallization seeds. The catalysts were characterized by means of XRPD, TEM/SEM, FT-IR, nitrogen physisorption and NH3-TPD. Due to the high-surface area anatase particles, loading of 20 wt% vanadia could be obtained without exceeding monolayer coverage of V2O5. This resulted in unprecedented high deNOX SCR activity corresponding to a factor of two compared to an industrial reference and to other V2O5/TiO2 catalysts reported in the literature in the examined temperature range of 200–400 °C. The catalysts showed very high resistivity towards potassium poisoning maintaining a 15–30 times higher activity than the equally poisoned industrial reference catalyst, upon impregnation by 280 μmole potassium/g of catalyst.