A Comparative Study of the NH3-SCR Reactions over an Original and Sb-Modified V2O5–WO3/TiO2 Catalyst at Low Temperatures

Considering the practical requirements for continuous operation under part load condition, the commercial honeycomb selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst was modified with Sb addition. Experiments were performed to investigate the effect of modification on long-time SCR performance under part load condition. Characterizations for the original and modified catalysts were also conducted to analyze the changes of the catalysts. The results indicated that the activity of modified catalyst was obviously enhanced in the temperature range of 275–325 °C and it achieved about 64.5% removal efficiency during the 30 h stability test at 275 °C. The characterization results indicated that the ammonium sulfate was chemically adsorbed on the catalyst surface at low temperatures, which led to the decrease of the specific surface area, pore volume, and V4+/V5+ ratio of the catalysts. These are the reasons for the decrease of the catalyst activity at low temperatures, while the deposition amount of ammonium sulfate was relatively small over the modified catalyst. In addition, the decomposition temperature of the ammonium sulfate was reduced in the modified catalyst compared with the original one. NH4+ ions decomposed at 275 °C by reacting with the NOx in the flue gas, and the dynamic equilibrium of this reaction was achieved on the modified catalyst after a short period of time. Therefore the modified catalyst can be continuously and stably operated at this temperature, and the part load operation of the SCR system in the coal-fired power plant can be realized.