Combined removal of SO2 and NO using sol-gel-derived copper oxide coated alumina sorbents/catalysts.

The present paper reports experimental results on the removal of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from simulated flue gas using a copper oxide coated on alumina sorbent/catalyst prepared by the sol-gel method. Selective catalytic reduction of nitric oxide by ammonia over sol-gel derived CuO/gamma-Al2O3 sorbents/catalysts with different degrees of sulfation was studied in a fixed-bed packed reactor. The optimum temperature for NO reduction was found at 350 degrees C for both fresh and sulfated catalysts. The properties for simultaneous removal of SO2 and NO by the sol-gel-derived CuO/gamma-Al2O3 sorbents were studied using simulated dry flue gas. The optimum operating temperature for the combined deSO2/deNO operations was identified at 350 degrees C. At the space velocity of 5200 h(-1) and 350 degrees C, a fixed-bed reactor packed with the 7.9 wt% CuO/gamma-Al2O3 sorbent prepared by the sol-gel method offers SO2 sorption capacity of 2.3 mmol g(-1) and NO conversion of 92% with a dry simulated flue gas as the feed. Under these experimental conditions, the sol-gel derived sorbents/catalysts have comparable efficiency for removal of SO2 and NOx as their commercial counterparts. The significantly higher crush strength of the sol-gel derived sorbents/catalysts make them very promising for their use in the copper oxide process for combined removal of SO2 and NOx from flue gas in a single unit operation.