Technical Paper
Impact of Thermal and Engine Ageing on a Fully Formulated Lean NOx Trap
2012-09-10
2012-01-1746
Comparative study of impact of thermal aging on both surface morphology and catalyst performances was performed over fully formulated commercial lean NOx Trap using hydrothermal (oven) and engine aging for 5 hours at 750°C and 5 hr at 800°C. Investigations show that engine aging lead to more important degradation than hydrothermal aging because of the greater structural degradations that happened after engine aging: sintering of Pt particles, reaction of support (γAl₂O₃) with the storage material and a higher drop of surface area. It follows a decrease of oxidation and storage efficiency particularly after engine aging. During lean rich cycle environment, the rich step was not efficient to remove all the stored NOx due to storage on Ba-Bulk sites leading to accumulation of NOx after each cycle. The observed trend after engine aging was attributed to the presence of sulfur and mainly to soot as engine aging was performed with low concentration of sulfur in fuel.
