Deactivation and Regeneration for the SO2-Poisoning of a Cu-SSZ-13 Catalyst in the NH3-SCR Reaction

Cu-SSZ-13 has been generally considered as the predominant commercial selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst in the NH3-SCR reaction because of its superior activity and durability. However, in real applications, SCR catalysts readily undergo hydrothermal aging and sulfur poisoning. In this work, the deactivation and regeneration of a commercial Cu-SSZ-13 catalyst was investigated for SO2 exposures during hydrothermal aging and the effect of different regeneration temperatures was compared. By using XRD, SEM, H2-temperature programmed reduction (TPR), X–ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) and NH3-temperature programmed desorption (TPD) analysis, it was found that SO2 poisoning influenced the chabazite (CHA) structure even if regeneration cannot restore its original structure, the redox ability and ammonia storage performance also influenced by sulfation and the regeneration process. Moreover, the extent of a decrease in redox ability was more severe than acidity, suggesting that the amount of isolated Cu2+ and Cu+ reduction was responsible for irreversible deactivation over the Cu-SSZ-13 catalyst. Combined with the analysis of Ea values and pre-exponential factor of the SCR reaction, a more likely explanation for the irreversible deactivation was that active sites were lost mostly in sulfated and regenerated process sites.