Catalytic Combustion of Carbon Monoxide Over LaCoO3 Perovskite Catalyst

Abstract

The uses of automobiles have been increased exponentially day to day and hence also the tremendous increase in emission like CO, HC, NOx, particulate matters etc. These pollutants have negative impact on air quality, environment and human health that leads in stringent norms of pollutant emission. Perovskite oxides of general formula ABO3 (where A and B are usually rare earth and transition metal cations, respectively) promising alternatives to supported noble metals have attracted much attention for exhaust gas depollution because of their low cost, thermal stability at rather high temperatures, great versatility and excellent redox properties. Porous perovskites type complex oxides LaCoO3, LaCo0.8Cu0.2O3, La0.8Sr0.2CoO3 and La0.8Sr0.2Co0.8Cu0.2O3 were produced by citric acid method and calcined at 973 K for 5 hr. The properties of these porous materials such as crystal structures, particle sizes, pore size, surface area and pore volume were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM)- Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX or EDS) and BET surface analysis. The formation of the perovskite structure has been shown by X-ray diffraction (XRD) for all samples except La0.8Sr0.2CoO3. The porous catalyst (LaCoO3) has been tested for carbon monoxide catalytic combustion and the results showed that these catalysts possessed high catalytic activity.