Steady-state and unsteady-state kinetic approaches for studying reactions over three-way natural gas vehicle catalysts

Kinetics has been proven to be a powerful method to probe catalytic surfaces under reaction conditions in order to elucidate, at molecular level, complex chemical processes. Numerous techniques and methodologies have been already implemented (surface science approaches, TAP, SSITKA…) running in very different pressure ranges (pressure gap) which led to controversial statements regarding suggested mechanism schemes, especially for DeNO_x reactions. Two typical reactions taking place over NGV catalysts have been selected to illustrate which information can be tackled from kinetic measurements. Both reactions occur in different temperature ranges and are sensitive to the structure of the catalyst, to the surface composition of bimetallic particles, with possible surface enrichments, and to the participation of the support. Hence, it will be tentatively demonstrated that kinetic combined with spectroscopic or theoretical methods can be appropriate to establish relevant correlations between kinetic parameters and the topology of the catalyst surface.