Combustion synthesis of perovskite-type catalysts for natural gas combustion

Combustion synthesis has been applied to LaMnO₃ production with a view to boosting its activity towards natural gas combustion by enhancing its specific surface area. With a highly exothermic and self-sustaining reaction, this oxide can be quickly prepared from an aqueous solution of metal nitrates (oxidisers) and urea (fuel).

The favourable conditions for LaMnO₃ formation were sought: only fuel-rich mixtures are effective, but carbonaceous deposits are formed when too much urea is used. In the field of operating conditions in which the combustion synthesis reaction takes place, the specific surface areas were not dramatically higher than those obtained with traditional methods; moreover, even short thermal treatments have been found to rapidly deactivate the catalysts by rapid sintering. With a view to tackling these problems, NH₄NO₃ was chosen as an additive for its low costs, highly exothermic decomposition and because it generates gaseous products only, without altering the proportion of the other elements in the catalysts. With ammonium nitrate, specific area was enhanced from 4 m²/g up to about 20 m²/g. A short thermal treatment at 900 °C partially deactivates also the NH₄NO₃-derived catalysts. It was found that NH₄NO₃-boosted mixtures produce materials whose activity, after a similar thermal treatment, behave practically as the perovskites obtained by the “citrates” method.

Combustion synthesis is though rather cheap—in terms of reactants employed—and quick, given that the process requires few minutes at low temperature without successive calcination. However, the main drawback of this method is that hazardous or polluting compounds are emitted during the synthesis (mainly NH₃ or NO_x).

The MgO introduction, which should act both as a structural promoter and as a sulphur poisoning limiting agent, has proved to be harmful: since MgO does not physically interpose between perovskite grains, it does not offer resistance to deactivation induced by high temperatures.