Mechanistic investigations of the promoting role of Rh on the NSR performance of NOx storage BaO-based catalysts

Journal article, 2013

To determine the promoting effect of Rh on the overall NOx storage and reduction (NSR) performance, the studies in the current work were directed toward investigating the storage and release ability over Rh NOx storage BaO-based catalysts compared to Pt. In terms of the metal surface dispersion and the ability of the noble metals to release oxygen at lower temperatures, the synthesized catalysts were characterized by means of dynamic CO chemisorption (RT) and N2O dissociation (RI - 773 K). The NOx storage capacity and the thermal stability of the NOx adsorbed species formed on the surface were analyzed via NOx storage tests and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) without and in the presence of CO2 and H2O. In addition, experiments with lean and rich cycling were conducted at 473,573 and 673 K. The results from the N2O dissociation experiments showed the superior ability of Rh/Al and Rh/Ba/Al catalysts compared to Pt toward O-2 release from the catalytic surface at lower temperatures. In this work, we show that the presence of Rh into the BaO/gamma-Al2O3 system has a considerable effect on the spill-over process of NOx to the precious metal, controlling the subsequent desorption of NOx to occur at lower temperatures in comparison with that of the Pt catalysts. It is suggested a mechanism of NOx desorption where the lower temperature of O-2 release from the surface of Rh catalysts could leave a significant number of noble metal sites accessible for adsorption. Thus this could facilitate the rate of spill-over of NOx from the storage site (the surface sites on gamma-Al2O3 and those on BaO) to the noble metal and their desorption at lower temperatures. The limited NOx storage ability of the Rh-based BaO/gamma-Al2O3 catalysts under lean-burn conditions was found to originate from both low NO oxidation activity and NOx reduction activity, while the main limiting factor for the low NSR performance of the Pt-based catalysts was the limited regeneration ability during rich period.