Prof. Jeong Min Baik’s research group develops high-performing SCR catalysts for tackling air pollution

- Low-temperature SCR catalyst developed impregnating highly-dispersed CuO–CeO2 nano-heterostructures

 - Published in Chemical Engineering Journal on Feb, 2022

Prof. Jeong Min Baik’s research group in tandem with Dr. Hong-Dae Kim (KITECH) and Prof. Hyesung Park (UNIST) developed nitrogen oxides (NOx) removal catalyst exhibiting superior catalytic performance at the low temperature (180oC~220oC).

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), is a widely-used industrial technique that converses the NOx­—the leading cause of the air pollution­—into N2 or H2O by using ammonia as a reducing agent.

However, widely-used VO2/TiO2 catalysts have fatal setbacks such as causing catalytic deactivation owing to agglomeration with its limited performance at high operation temperature (250℃ or higher), not to mention its high maintenance costs. Therefore, developing a low-temperature catalyst showing high activation at about 200℃ increasingly gained importance, though, deactivation owing to SO2 and water used to be a challenge.

To cope with, the research team fabricated ultra-small (<5 nm in size) CuO–CeO2 heterostructures with atomically well-defined interface followed by impregnation to V2O5–WO3-CeO2/TiO2 (2V-10Ce-1W/Ti) catalysts, achieving 44% higher Nox removal efficiency than the conventional catalysts.

Also, they succeeded in raising K-factor (K16h/K0) from 0.60 to 0.83 under SO2 atmosphere, as well as the resistance towards the water.

“We are soon going to check its industrial applicability through conducting empirical experiments. Through follow-up research, we will develop catalysts with a longer operation at below 200°C." Prof. Baik stated.

In this regard, the research team has already applied for two patents. The experts expect that the cost for reducing NOx emissions from industrial sites such as factories and steel mills will be drastically reduced.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, South Korea (MOTIE, 20005721), by the Mid-Career Researcher Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (NRF-2019R1A2C2009822), and by National R&D Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT (2021M3C1C309).

※ Paper : Cu- and Ce- promoted nano-heterostructures on vanadate catalysts for low-temperature NH3-SCR activity with improved SO2 and water resistance 

※ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.135427