Selective catalytic reduction with NH3 (NH3-SCR) is the most efficient technology to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from coal-fired industries, diesel engines, etc. Although V2O5-WO3(MoO3)/TiO2 and CHA structured zeolite catalysts have been utilized in commercial applications, the increasing requirements for broad working temperature window, strong SO2/alkali/heavy metal-resistance, and high hydrothermal stability have stimulated the development of new-type NH3-SCR catalysts. This review summarizes the latest SCR reaction mechanisms and emerging poison-resistant mechanisms in the beginning and subsequently gives a comprehensive overview of newly developed SCR catalysts, including metal oxide catalysts ranging from VOx, MnOx, CeO2, and Fe2O3 to CuO based catalysts; acidic compound catalysts containing vanadate, phosphate and sulfate catalysts; ion exchanged zeolite catalysts such as Fe, Cu, Mn, etc. exchanged zeolite catalysts; monolith catalysts including extruded, washcoated, and metal-mesh/foam-based monolith catalysts. The challenges and opportunities for each type of catalysts are proposed while the effective strategies are summarized for enhancing the acidity/redox circle and poison-resistance through modification, creating novel nanostructures, exposing specific crystalline planes, constructing protective/sacrificial sites, etc. Some suggestions are given about future research directions that efforts should be made in. Hopefully, this review can bridge the gap between newly developed catalysts and practical requirements to realize their commercial applications in the near future.

Selective Catalytic Reduction of NOx with NH3 by Using Novel Catalysts: State of the Art and Future Prospects.

Owing to the vast diversity of linkers, nodes, and topologies, metal–organic frameworks can be tailored for specific tasks, such as chemical separations or catalysis. Accordingly, these materials have attracted significant interest for capture and/or detoxification of toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents. In this paper, we review recent experimental and computational work pertaining to the capture of several industrially-relevant toxic chemicals, including NH3, SO2, NO2, H2S, and some volatile organic compounds, with particular emphasis on the challenging issue of designing materials that selectively adsorb these chemicals in the presence of water. We also examine recent research on the capture and catalytic degradation of chemical warfare agents such as sarin and sulfur mustard using metal–organic frameworks.

Metal–organic frameworks for the removal of toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents

The utilization of fossil fuels has enabled an unprecedented era of prosperity and advancement of well-being for human society. However, the associated increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can negatively affect global temperatures and ocean acidity. Moreover, fossil fuels are a limited resource and their depletion will ultimately force one to seek alternative carbon sources to maintain a sustainable economy. Converting CO2 into value-added chemicals and fuels, using renewable energy, is one of the promising approaches in this regard. Major advances in energy-efficient CO2 conversion can potentially alleviate CO2 emissions, reduce the dependence on nonrenewable resources, and minimize the environmental impacts from the portions of fossil fuels displaced. Methanol (CH3OH) is an important chemical feedstock and can be used as a fuel for internal combustion engines and fuel cells, as well as a platform molecule for the production of chemicals and fuels. As one of the promising approaches, thermocatalytic CO2 hydrogenation to CH3OH via heterogeneous catalysis has attracted great attention in the past decades. Major progress has been made in the development of various catalysts including metals, metal oxides, and intermetallic compounds. In addition, efforts are also put forth to define catalyst structures in nanoscale by taking advantage of nanostructured materials, which enables the tuning of the catalyst composition and modulation of surface structures and potentially endows more promising catalytic performance in comparison to the bulk materials prepared by traditional methods. Despite these achievements, significant challenges still exist in developing robust catalysts with good catalytic performance and long-term stability. In this review, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in this area, especially focusing on structure-activity relationship, as well as the importance of combining catalytic measurements, in situ characterization, and theoretical studies in understanding reaction mechanisms and identifying key descriptors for designing improved catalysts.

Recent Advances in Carbon Dioxide Hydrogenation to Methanol via Heterogeneous Catalysis.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of distinctive porous crystalline materials constructed by metal ions/clusters and organic linkers. Owing to their structural diversity, functional adjustability, and high surface area, different types of MOF-based single metal sites are well exploited, including coordinately unsaturated metal sites from metal nodes and metallolinkers, as well as active metal species immobilized to MOFs. Furthermore, controllable thermal transformation of MOFs can upgrade them to nanomaterials functionalized with active single-atom catalysts (SACs). These unique features of MOFs and their derivatives enable them to serve as a highly versatile platform for catalysis, which has actually been becoming a rapidly developing interdisciplinary research area. In this review, we overview the recent developments of catalysis at single metal sites in MOF-based materials with emphasis on their structures and applications for thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis. We also compare the results and summarize the major insights gained from the works in this review, providing the challenges and prospects in this emerging field.

Metal-Organic Framework-Based Catalysts with Single Metal Sites.

Extensive calculations based on density functional theory have been carried out to understand the origin of magnetism in undoped ZnO thin films as found in recent experiments. The observed magnetism is confirmed to be due to Zn, instead of O, vacancy. The main source of the magnetic moment, however, arises from the unpaired 2p electrons at O sites surrounding the Zn vacancy with each nearest-neighbor O atom carrying a magnetic moment ranging from 0.490 to 0.740 B. Moreover, the study of vacancy-vacancy interactions indicates that in the ground state, the magnetic moments induced by Zn vacancies prefer to ferromagnetically couple with the antiferromagnetic state lying 44 meV higher in energy. Since this is larger than the thermal energy at room temperature, the ferromagnetic state can be stable against thermal fluctuations. Calculations and discussions are also extended to ZnO nanowires that have larger surface to volume ratio. Here, the Zn vacancies are found to lead to the ferromagnetic state too. The present theoretical study not only demonstrates that ZnO samples can be magnetic even without transition-metal doping but also suggests that introducing Zn vacancy is a natural and an effective way to fabricate magnetic ZnO nanostructures. In addition, vacancy mediated magnetic ZnO nanostructures may have certain advantages over transition-metal doped systems in biomedical applications.

https://absimage.aps.org/image/MAR08/MWS_MAR08-2007-004197.pdf

Zinc Vacancy induced magnetism in ZnO thin films and nanowires

The first-step hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol via a HCOO route, COOH route, and RWGS + CO-hydro route on NixW(111) (x = 0, 1, 3) has been studied using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. CO2 and H could be chemically adsorbed on Ni-doped W(111) surfaces with relatively high adsorption energy, due to the synergistic effect of W that helps anchoring CO2 and Ni that facilitates the adsorption of H. The HCOO route is the main path for the first-step hydrogenation of CO2 with lower barriers on all three surfaces. Besides, competition between the HCOO route and RWGS + CO-hydro route could be enhanced with the increase in doped Ni on the W(111) surface. Furthermore, the first-step hydrogenation of CO2 hardly undergoes the COOH pathway because of the higher barriers, although the doping of Ni has slightly reduced the barrier of COOH formation. Our calculated results indicate that the W(111) and Ni-doped W(111) surface are potential candidate surfaces for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol, and Ni doping could influence the selectivity of reduction pathways.

A DFT study for CO2 hydrogenation on W(111) and Ni-doped W(111) surfaces.

Trace benzene removal from vinyl acetate with ZIFs: A computational study

Highly dispersed palladium nanoparticles (NPs) supported on UiO-66 as catalyst for CO2 methanation were prepared by supercritical fluid deposition (SFD). As a result, the most suitable Pd precursor salt and co-solvent are Na2PdCl4 and ethanol/DMF, respectively. The best SFD process condition to deposit the Pd precursor on UiO-66 is 40 °C, 10 MPa and 2 h. Under the above condition, 4% Pd/UiO-66 exhibits the highest activity with 53% of CO2 conversion and 95% of CH4 selectivity while the turnover frequency (TOF) value is 3669.4 h−1. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, BET, TEM, XPS, TGA, CO-DRIFTS and ICP-OES to investigate the structure–activity relationship. The 4% Pd/UiO-66 with the average size of 2.2 nm of Pd prepared in assistance of supercritical fluid behaved the similar activity as the 6%Pd/UiO-66 with average size of 9.7 nm of Pd prepared by sol–gel method. It is showed prospect of technique for reducing noble metal loading resulting from high dispersion effect.

Highly-dispersed Pd nanoparticles on UiO-66 in assistance of supercritical fluid and its catalytic performance of CO2 methanation

Mechanism and safety analysis of acetylene decomposition explosion: A combined ReaxFF MD with DFT study

Vinyl acetate (VAc) is a kind of widely used organic raw material which is mainly synthesized by the carbide acetylene method in China. However, trace amounts of benzene impurities in the VAc product has seriously limited its application in fine chemical industry. In this work, multiscale simulation method including molecular level and process simulation are used to screen an effective metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) which could be employed in the pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process. Grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and configure bias Monte Carlo (CBMC) are combined to investigate the adsorption behavior in different MOFs: Cu-BTC, Zn-BDC, IRMOFs, and M-DOBDC. Special interactions between exposed metal sites in Cu-BTC result in greater benzene adsorption capacity than VAc. Special square channels in Zn-BDC which is close to benzene molecule also favors the adsorption of benzene. The organic chain length and adding functional groups in IRMOFs have no influence on separation selectivity of benzene over...

Yifei Chen

Papers

A DFT study for CO2 hydrogenation on W(111) and Ni-doped W(111) surfaces.

Trace benzene removal from vinyl acetate with ZIFs: A computational study

Highly-dispersed Pd nanoparticles on UiO-66 in assistance of supercritical fluid and its catalytic performance of CO2 methanation

Mechanism and safety analysis of acetylene decomposition explosion: A combined ReaxFF MD with DFT study

Trace Benzene Separation from Vinyl Acetate: A Multiscale Simulation Study