NY-87-01-3 — Commercial Regeneration Experience for Catalysts in Air Pollution Control Applications

Catalyzed honeycomb substrates are used commercially for abatement of organic compounds and carbon monoxide in off-gases from numerous industrial and chemical manufacturing processes. In these applications, the catalyst is often exposed to a feed gas environment that is not fully characterized, and suitable catalyst regeneration methods must be devised to restore the catalyst performance for abatement when deactivation occurs from unknown causes other than from thermal excursions.

Industrial experience has been gained for regeneration of catalysts using chemical cleaning procedures. Proper catalyst maintenance using these procedures has resulted in catalysts lasting from 5 to 10 years with satisfactory performance in industrial catalytic pollution control applications.

A brief survey of materials that are detrimental to catalyst performance is given. Successful catalyst regeneration procedures are described along with laboratory activity test results that confirm the effectiveness of the cleaning procedures. Finally, industrial applications of chemical cleaning are summarized along with actual case histories of commercial installations.