TY - JOUR AU - Khan, Naseer Ahmed AU - Kennedy, E.M. AU - Dlugogorski, B. Z. AU - Adesina, A. A. AU - Ul-Hassan, S.N. AU - Ullah, N. AU - Shah, I. AU - Ahmad, T. AU - Stockenhuber, M. PY - 2017/02/17 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - A laboratory scale investigation of N2O catalytic reduction over cobalt and iron catalysts JF - Journal of the Pakistan Institute of Chemical Engineers JA - JPIChE VL - 45 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - UR - http://piche.org.pk/journal/index.php/jpiche/article/view/306 SP - JPIChE 45 (1) 2017 01 - 12 AB - <p>The economy of Pakistan is strongly reliant on agricultural activities. Nitric acid plants are operating in different locations of the country for the production of ammonium nitrate fertilizers. Unfortunately, N<sub>2</sub>O is one of the by-products formed, particularly in older nitric acid plants. N<sub>2</sub>O is a potent greenhouse gas and has a higher global warming potential (GWP) than CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub>. Furthermore, it plays an important role in ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) layer depletion. At present, the production of nitric acid is a single largest source of N<sub>2</sub>O emissions. In order to minimize the hazardous effects of N<sub>2</sub>O, its dissociation into N<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub> is more favourable reaction. In the current work, a laboratory scale N<sub>2</sub>O dissociation reaction is examined over different cobalt and iron catalysts in a fixed bed tubular reactor. The temperature and pressure of the reactor were varied between 300 °C – 500 °C, and 1 bar – 10 bar, respectively. Surface characterization of the prepared catalysts was done through ICP, TPD, XRD, TGA, and N<sub>2</sub> adsorption/desorption isotherms.</p> <p>Experimental results suggest that the catalyst support plays a vital role in N<sub>2</sub>O conversion. H-ZSM-5 support is inactive in a studied range of temperature (300 °C – 500 °C). When cobalt was loaded on H-ZSM-5 support, by wet deposition method, the Co-ZSM-5 catalyst showed the highest activity among all other catalysts tested. The surface morphology of the catalysts changes with cobalt or iron loading, as indicated by the variation in<strong> </strong>Langmuir surface area (m<sup>2</sup>g<sup>-1</sup>). As a whole, the activity of H-ZSM-5 increases with cobalt or iron loading, however, every loaded metal is not active for the N<sub>2</sub>O dissociation reaction. Co<sup>2+</sup> species seems to be highly active for the N<sub>2</sub>O activation.</p> <p>Additionally, it was also observed that the mass of the Co-ZSM-5<sub>(W.D)</sub> decreases by 18 % due to the water desorption during catalyst activation process. The evidence for the formation of different surface species is also shown in the present work.</p> ER -