Catalytic Studies Performed Using the HT/HP Cell 

The HT/HP cell is a cell for transmission and specular reflectance spectroscopy. It has been used for a number of in-situ catalytic studies in accordance with its ability to provide a temperature controlled gaseous environment under which sorption/desorption on solid supported catalysts may be studied. The cell can reach 800°C under a vacuum and be pressurised up to 1000 psi (68.9 bar). Below is just one example of a catalytic study undertaken with the HT/HP cell. Many different catalyst systems can be conveniently studied using the cell.

Work by Zhang et al. investigated the effects of the flue gases sulphur trioxide and sulphur dioxide on Cu/ZSM-5 catalysts for the removal of mercury from power plants [1]. Both SO₂ and SO₃ are components of flue gases and under real conditions: the latter reacts easily with the water content to produce sulphuric acid, making it difficult to determine whether the effects on catalytic performance are due to SO₃ or the sulphuric acid. Their infrared spectroscopy work demonstrated that the SO₃ is adsorbed preferentially to SO₂ when both co-exist in the reaction atmosphere and that the peaks assigned to SO₃ were gradually reduced after the introduction of the mercury.

1.          H. Zhang, J. Liu, Y. Zhang, J. Wang, B. Sun and wei-ping Pan, Promotional effect of sulfur trioxide (SO₃) on elemental mercury removal over Cu/ZSM-5 catalyst, Applied Surface Science, 2020, 511, 145604.