The influence of microwave plasma pretreated CuO/TiO2 catalysts in NO + CO reaction

NO reduction by CO reaction was comparatively studied over microwave plasma pretreated CuO/TiO2 catalysts employing transmission electron microscopy (TEM), hydrogen temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR), and in situ Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (in situ FTIR). The catalytic performances indicated that a remarkable improvement in activity and selectivity was achieved after microwave plasma pretreatment, which was dependent on the microwave plasma pretreatment time. The results also suggested that a high active oxygen species (O*) was formed on the surface of plasma pretreated CuO/TiO2 catalysts, which led to the easy oxidation of NO to NO2 at low temperature even without introducing any additional O2 gas into the reaction system. Therefore, these high active oxygen species (O*) should play an important role for the exaltation of the catalytic performances of the catalysts.