1998

Ceramic foams show a significant potential of development and application, essentially due to the emergence of environmental preoccupations. A brief overview of the state of the art in cellular ceramic application, preparation and characterization is presented in order to introduce some new data concerning the elaboration of mullite and PZT foams by a replication and a bubble generation method, respectively.

In this work, the effect of thermal treatment at 380°C and 600°C, under gaseous atmospheres containing some typical components of diesel emissions (SO2 and water), was studied on some promising catalysts for diesel particulate combustion. In particular, the ageing behaviour of two novel catalysts (based on CsVO3+KCl and KVO3+KCl, respectively) and of a more widely studied Cu–K–V–Cl catalyst was investigated.

A K-V-I-containing catalyst for low-temperature combustion of carbonaceous materials was studied so as to check its potential in diesel particulate removal. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS) showed that its main constituting compounds are KVO3, KI and K4O7. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO) tests enlightened that the catalyst is active well below 400°C (peak combustion temperature: Tp = 380°C).