The Unique CO Activation Effects for Boosting NH₃ Selective Catalytic Oxidation over CuO-CeO₂

Slip NH₃ is a priority pollutant of concern to be removed in various flue gases with NO and CO after denitrification using NH₃-SCR or NH₃-SNCR, and the simultaneous catalytic removal of NH₃ and CO has become one of the new topics in the deep treatment of such flue gases. Synergistic catalytic oxidation of CO and NH₃ appears to be a promising method but still has many challenges. Due to the competition for active oxidizing species, CO was supposed to hinder the NH₃ selective catalytic oxidation (NH₃-SCO). However, it is first found that CO could significantly promote NH₃-SCO over the CuO-CeO₂ catalyst. The NH₃ conversion rates increased linearly with CO concentrations in the range of 180-300 °C. Specifically, it accelerated by 2.8 times with 10,000 ppm CO inflow at 220 °C. Mechanism studies found that the Cu-O-Ce solid solution was more active for CO oxidation, while the CuO species facilitated the NH₃ dehydrogenation and mitigated the competition of NH₃ and CO, further stabilizing the promotion effects. Gaseous CO boosted the generation of active isolated oxygen atoms (O_i) by actuating the Cu⁺/Cu²⁺ redox cycle. The enriched O_i facilitated oxidation of NH₃ to NO and was conducive to the NH₃-SCO via the i-SCR approach. This study tapped the potential of CO for promoting simultaneous catalytic oxidation of coexisting pollutants in the flue gas.