"Decoking" of a "coked" zeolite catalyst in a glow discharge

'Decoking' of a 'coked' zeolite catalyst in a glow discharge in oxygen is investigated. The 'decoking' process involves reactions of atomic oxygen (O atoms) with 'coke' and yields gases such as CO, CO₂ as well as other gaseous products that could be easily pumped out.Three different modes of discharge were investigated including a static mode, a flowing-gas mode, and a periodic-purge mode where the oxygen and other gaseous products of the discharge were replaced by fresh O₂ gas after short but regular intervals of time. In some cases, additional heating was also used to provide base temperatures of the order of 100 °C to facilitate penetration of oxygen atoms into the inner layers and cages of the zeolite catalyst.This paper presents some results of spectroscopic analytical techniques used to monitor the atomization of oxygen, oxidation of 'coke', and to confirm the process of 'decoking'. More specifically, radiation emission on the 3 s ⁵S– 3p ⁵P transitions of O around 777.2–777.5 nm were selected for monitoring the atomization of O₂. On the other hand, X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to determine the amount of residual carbon and extent of 'decoking'. Furthermore, evolution of CO and CO₂ gases as a function of time was systematically monitored in real time. For CO, the 451.1 nm band head belonging to the B¹ - A¹ bands of the Angstrom system of the CO spectrum was used, while for CO₂, the band head at 353.4 nm belonging to the CO₂⁺ spectrum was used. The rates of evolution of CO and CO₂ were related to the rate of 'decoking' of the catalyst. It is noted that in the periodic-purge mode, about 63% of the total yield of CO from a given sample of the catalyst appears in the first 3-min exposure to discharge whereas it takes up to 15 min to remove nearly 94% of the removable carbon under our experimental conditions.