Xuehui Li

Novel Fe–Mn mixed-oxide catalysts were prepared for the low-temperature selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx with ammonia in the presence of excess oxygen. It was found that Fe(0.4)–MnOx catalyst showed the highest activity, yielding 98.8% NOx conversion and 100% selectivity of N2 at 120 °C at a space velocity of 30 000 h–1. XRD results suggested that a new crystal phase of Fe3Mn3O8 was formed in the Fe–MnOx catalysts. TPR and Raman data showed that there was a strong interaction between the iron oxide and manganese oxide, which is responsible for the formation of the active center―Fe3Mn3O8. Intensive analysis of fresh, used, and regenerated catalysts by XPS revealed that electron transfer between Fen+ and Mnn+ ions in Fe3Mn3O8 may account for the long lifetime of the Fe(0.4)–MnOx catalyst. In addition, the SCR activity was suppressed a little in the presence of SO2 and H2O, but it was reversible after their removal.

It has long been demonstrated that KOH and ZnCl2 can be used as efficient chemical activation agents to prepare porous carbons. Herein, we develop a green activation method, that is, one-step calcium chloride (CaCl2) activation sugar cane bagasse with urea, for the preparation of nitrogen-rich porous carbons (NPCs). The nitrogen contents, specific surface areas, pore sizes, and specific capacitances of the obtained NPCs can be effectively tuned by adjusting the ratio of carbon precursor (sugar cane bagasse), nitrogen source (urea), and activation agent (CaCl2). The synthesized three-dimensional oriented and interlinked porous nitrogen-rich carbons (3D-NPCs) contain not only abundant porosities which can impose an advantage for ion buffering and accommodation, but also high nitrogen content in the carbons which can obviously increase the pseudocapacitance. Therefore, for the typical sample, obtained from pyrolysis of the mixture of sugar cane bagasse, urea, and CaCl2 in a mass ratio of 1:2:2 at 800 °C for 2 h under N2 atmosphere, shows a high specific capacitance, excellent rate capability (with 323 and 213 F g–1 at the discharge/charge current densities of 1 and 30 A g–1, respectively), and outstanding cycle performance (a negligible capacitance loss after 10 000 cycles at 5 A g–1).