Grafted tungstophosphoric acid (H3PW12O40/ HPW) is applied as a catalyst in the selective catalytic reduction of NOx with NH3 (NH3-SCR). The HPW/CeO2 catalyst has been found to be effective in the SCR reaction compared to HPW/SiO2. The cobalt-exchanged HPW/CeO2 improved NOx conversion, which reached 98% over a wide operating temperature window (280-500 °C). The better NOx performance of the CoPW/CeO2 catalyst is mainly due to the higher dispersion of tungsten on the CeO2 support, the formation of oxygen vacancies and the production of nitrogenous species. Incorporation of vanadium decreased the acidity of HPW, which reduced SCR activity on the HPVW/CeO2 catalyst.

A series of HPW/CeO2 catalysts generated from 12-tungstophosphoric acid, H3PW12O40 (HPW), supported on ceria and presenting different tungsten loadings (2, 4.5, 9, 16, and 40 wt% W) were prepared and characterized by N2 physisorption, XRD, IR, Raman, and UV-Vis. The different characterization techniques suggested that low loading of tungsten resulted in mainly isolated sites, while high tungsten loading produced polymeric or tungsten clusters. Those materials exhibited high activity in NH3-SCR of NOx into N2. Moreover, the series of experiments indicated that low loading in tungsten (2% HPW/CeO2) displayed the highest activity with a remarkable N2 selectivity (99%) at medium-high temperature (300–515 °C), owing to the high amount of monomeric tungstate coverage on the catalyst surface.