Study on the active sites of Cu–ZSM-5 in trichloroethylene catalytic combustion with air

Abstract The catalytic activity of Cu–ZSM-5 in trichloroethylene (TCE) combustion increases with the increasing skeletal Cu amount and however decreases with the increase of surface amorphous CuO, which is detected by infrared spectroscopy (IR) and diffuse reflectance ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (DRS-UV–vis), therefore the skeletal Cu species are concluded to be the active sites for the TCE combustion.