Supported
V2O5–WO3/TiO2 materials
are employed as selective catalytic reduction (SCR)
catalysts for NO
x
emission control from
power plants. Fresh SCR catalysts usually receive exposure to harsh
treatments in the industry to accelerate catalyst activation (calcination
in air at 650 °C) and catalyst aging (hydrothermal aging at 650
°C) in a way that represents various points in the catalyst/product
lifetime. The present study investigates the catalyst structural and
chemical changes occurring during such harsh treatments. Three series
of supported V2O5–WO3/TiO2 catalysts were prepared by incipient-wetness impregnation
of aqueous ammonium metavanadate and metatungstate precursors. The
catalysts were subsequently dried and calcined at 550 °C in O2, 650 °C in O2, and hydrothermal conditions
(10% O2, 8% H2O, 7% CO2, and 75%
N2) at 650 °C. The resulting catalysts were physically
characterized by numerous techniques (in situ Raman; in situ IR; in situ high-field–high-spinning
solid-state 51V MAS NMR; in situ electron
paramagnetic resonance; X-ray diffraction; Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller
surface area; and inductively coupled plasma) and chemically probed
with adsorbed ammonia, SCR–TPSR, and the SCR reaction. The
surface WO
x
sites on the TiO2 support behave as a textural promoter that stabilizes the TiO2 (anatase) phase from sintering and transforming to the undesirable
crystalline TiO2 (rutile) phase that can lead to formation
of a Ti1–x
V
x
O2 (rutile) solid solution with reduced V4+ cations (∼7–15%). The surface VO
x
sites are mostly oligomerized as surface V5+O
x
sites (∼50–85% oligomers)
and the extent of oligomerization tends to increase with surface WO
x
coverage and calcination temperature. A
major difference between the calcined and hydrothermally treated catalysts
was the low concentration of surface NH3
* species on Lewis acid sites for the
hydrothermally treated catalysts, yet the SCR activity was almost
comparable for both catalysts. This finding suggests that surface
NH4
+*, primarily associated with the surface
VO
x
sites, are able to efficiently perform
the SCR reaction. Given that multiple catalyst parameters were simultaneously
varying during these treatments, it was difficult to correlate the
SCR activity with any single catalyst parameter. A correlation, however,
was found between the SCR TOF/activity and the sum of the surface
NH3
* and NH4
+* species, which is dominated by the surface NH4
+* species.