Poisoning of SCR Catalysts used in Municipal Waste Incineration Applications

A commercial vanadia, tungsta on titania SCR catalyst was poisoned in a side stream in a waste incineration plant. The effect of especially alkali metal poisoning was observed resulting in a decreased activity at long times of exposure. The deactivation after 2311 h was 36% while the decrease in surface area was only 7.6%. Thus the major cause for deactivation was a chemical blocking of acidic sites by alkali metals. The activation–deactivation model showed excellent agreement with experimental data. The model suggests that the original adsorption sites, from the preparation of the catalyst, are rapidly deactivated but are replaced by a new population of adsorption sites due to activation of the catalyst surface by sulphur compounds (SO2, SO3) in the flue gas.