CCP Tutorial 5

1. (1) Fouling (coke formation) – fouling is a physical deposition of species onto the
catalyst surface. Common deposition species will be carbon or coke. This will result in
the activity loss due to the blockage of active sites and pores of the carrier (support),
encapsulating the catalyst and casing the active sites on catalyst inaccessible.
Example of fouling is coke formation on zeolite in FCC. This can be tested by TGA
(2) sintering of carrier – reduction of support surface area due to pore shrinkage or
conversion of supprts to less porous form
Example: alumina used in automotive exhaust catalyst
Charaterisation: BET analysis: N2 adsorption
(3) sintering of catalyst species – a process a fusing occurred to the active sites(mainly
metal particles) due to high temperature
Example: sintering nickel catalys in steam reforming
Charaterisation: XRD, chemisorption
(4) selective poisoning – a poison directly reacts with active site, decreasing its activity
or
Example: poisoning of ozone abatement catalyst by sulfur
Characterisation: chemisorption
2. a. Selective poisoning – loss of active sites (X-T profile shifted to right)
slope is same: the reaction is kinetic controlled
chemisorption decreased by 75% - loss of active sites
BET unchanged – no change on support
no change in crystal size: sintering of catalytic species does not occured
selective poisoning
b. Sintering of Carrier/support
Small decrease in BET surface area – closure of pore, change of structure of support
XRD of TiO2 has sharper peak – higher crystallinity
Chemisorption remain – active sites remain
Slope X-T graph decrease – pore diffusion is the rate-limiting step
3. a. light-off temperature increase – loss of active sites
slope X-T graph decrease – pore diffusion is rate limitning
XPS – no foreign species – no poisoning
Crystallite size equal – no sinering of catalytic species
SA decrease – change in structure of carrier or support
 Sintering of carrier
b. XRD of Al2O3, sharper peak of Al2O3
4. slope unchanged – kinetic controlled
light off Temperature increase – loss in active sites
no change in crystallite size – structure remain – no sintering
lower chemisorption – loss of active site
no change in pore size or internal SA – no sintering, no change in support
dilute oxygen not successful to regenerate – no coke formation
Selective poisoning of active site by other material
b. XPS to look for other species