Low Temperature Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) of NOx Emissions by Mn-doped Cu/Al2O3 Catalysts

The 15 mol% Cu/Al2O3 catalysts with different Mn doping (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, mol%) were prepared using PEG-300 surfactant following evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method. Calcination of precursors were performed in flowing air conditions at 500 oC. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning Electron Microscope Energy Dispersive X-Ray (SEM-EDX), Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR), and N2 physisorption. The catalysts activities were evaluated for H2 assisted LPG-SCR of NO in a packed bed tubular flow reactor with 200 mg catalyst under the following conditions: 500 ppm NO, 8 % O2, 1000 ppm LPG, 1 % H2 in Ar with total flow rate of 100 mL/min. Characterization of the catalysts revealed that surface area of 45.6-50.3 m2/g, narrow pore size distribution (1-2 nm), nano-size crystallites, Cu2+ and Mn2+ phases were principal active components. Hydrogen enhanced significantly selective reduction of NO to N2 with LPG over 1.0 mol % Mn-Cu/Al2O3 giving 95.56 % NO reduction at 150 oC. It was proposed that the synergistic interaction between H2 and LPG substantially widened the NO reduction temperature window and a considerable increase in both activity and selectivity. Negligible loss of catalyst activity was observed for the 50 h of stream on run experiment at 150 oC. The narrow pore size distribution, thermal stability of the catalyst and optimum Mn doping ensures good dispersion of Cu and Mn over Al2O3 that improved NO reduction in H2-LPG SCR system. Copyright © 2017 BCREC Group. All rights reserved


Introduction
Multiple-growth of vehicular count and increasing industrialization emit toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) as primary pollutants directly into atmosphere [1].The NOx photo-chemically reacts with atmospheric constituents and pro-duces more lethal secondary pollutants viz.acid rain, ozone, smog, etc. [2].In addition, NOx also cause global warming, and climate change.To prevent adversarial effects on health and environment, legislations require continuous strictness through upgrading pollution abatement techniques.Both light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles emission need more modern clean de-NOx exhaust technologies to improve air quality [3].Therefore, NOx abatement has become a signifi-cant concern and a focused approach is needed to amend or develop the technologies to reduce NOx emission.In the last few decades, many de-NOx studies have been focused on exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), catalytic decomposition of NOx, lean-burn NOx traps (LNT), and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx.Among several NOx control techniques SCR of NOx with reductants such as NH3, urea, hydrocarbon, or H2-hydrocarbon are the most effective way [4][5][6].For automotive NOx emission control applications, it is necessary to develop a highly active, selective and robust SCR catalyst.The catalyst should selectively convert NOx in presence of a reductant into environmentally benign N2 molecules.Consequently, great efforts have been made to develop SCR catalysts with large specific surface area and pore diameter Al2O3 support [1,4].
Catalyst is the key to SCR technology and its performance directly affects the abatement of NOx emissions.Different types of SCR catalysts are reported in the literature such as platinum group metal (Pt, Pd, Rh, etc.), precious metal (Ag/Al2O3, Au-Ag/Al2O3) and transition metals (V2O5-WO3/TiO2, Cu-ZSM-5, Fe-ZSM-5, etc.) [7][8][9][10][11][12].PGM catalysts are highly active but they are costly, low abundance and vulnerable to further price increases with increasing demand.Therefore, the need to explore PGM free catalyst with transition metals is of global research prominence.Transition metal oxide-based catalysts are inexpensive, resistant to poisoning and higher active surface area compared to noble metal oxides [13].Consequently, transition metal oxides have been intensively studied to discover more economical and effective catalysts for low-temperature SCR of NOx.
A great number of scientific publications relate to cheaper catalysts than PGM catalysts for SCR processes have been reported.The MnOx, NiOx, CuOx, CeOx, and mixed metal oxides have been studied as promising cheap and low temperature SCR catalysts.The commercial catalysts V2O5-WO3/TiO2 and V2O5-WO3 (MO3)/TiO2 were widely used as NH3-SCR in stationary engines exhaust, encounter difficulties such as ammonia slip, air heater fouling, ammonium sulfate deposition and being hazardous not a good choice for vehicular engines.Cu-ZSM-5 and Fe-ZSM-5 are highly active and stable at high temperatures but hydrothermally unstable make them not viable for commercial applications [14].
Several reactions occur in an NH3-SCR system that reduces NOx to nitrogen, can be illustrated as Equations (1-3) [19].The dominant reaction is represented by Equation (1).
Competing, non-selective reactions with oxygen can produce secondary emissions or may unproductively consume ammonia.One such nonselective reaction is the complete oxidation of ammonia, shown by Equation (2).
Also, side reactions may lead to undesirable products such as N2O, as represented by Equation (3).
2NO+C3H8 + H2 +5.5O2  N2 + 3CO2 + 5H2O (5) There are dominantly two reductants were used for diesel vehicular exhaust; first is Urea-SCR and the second one is HC-SCR.Recently, commercial SCR systems employed in heavyduty trucks and also in a few light-duty leanburn vehicles are based on aqueous 32.5 % urea solution (AdBlue), which hydrolyzes to release ammonia in the hot exhaust gas system [20].The released ammonia reduces the NOx on the SCR catalyst to form nitrogen and water.The major drawbacks with such SCR system are NH3-slip, ash odor, air heaters plugging and formation of harmful by-products.
The side reactions of NH3 oxidation over catalyst above 240 °C with O2 concentration above 5 % produce N2O and NO2 [21].The side reactions compete with the SCR reaction for NH3 and hence, the NO conversion is reduced.Further, urea only hydrolyses to ammonia in hot exhaust gas above 200 o C, it is not possible to inject urea during at lower temperature and consequently NOx emissions reduction drops.Also, extra cost of storage in the vehicles is objectionable factor.These key facts enforced researchers to find out alternate reductant for low temperature NO-SCR.
The potential use of LPG (~72 % C3H8) as reducing agent in the SCR of NOx is a better alternative to the other reductants as it leads to a strong decrease in the Gibbs free energy values of NO reduction to N2 than other reductants (Table 1) [22].In addition, LPG offers better system integration, as it is readily obtainable and is used as a fuel for many utilities and encouraged for use in motor vehicles.
Therefore, an alternative strategy for meeting NOx emission regulations that does not exhibit the difficulties of the aforementioned methods is HC-SCR [23].The better selectivity of NO reduction to N2 in case of H2-LPG ensures less susceptibility to side reactions [24].Further, recent invention shows that addition of small amounts of hydrogen to the diesel engine exhaust can significantly improve the performance [25].
Manganese doped catalyst significantly improves the low temperature SCR activity [26].
The key factors are identified to be (1) high specific surface area and surface acidity; (2) additional surface adsorbed oxygen on the catalyst surface (3) well dispersion of MnOx [27].The MnOx showed the redox property of lattice oxygen [28].It has been found that Mn doping in a catalyst lowers down the temperature for NOx SCR [29][30][31].Among all, Mn-based catalysts have acknowledged for high de-NOx potential at low temperatures [32].However, improvement in NOx conversions, broadening of temperature window and time on stream patterns still need to be improved.
There is no work reported on Mn doped Cu/Al2O3 catalyst using H2-LPG reductant in the open literature for de-NOx.Thus, in the present study Mn doped Cu based catalysts were comparatively investigated and concluded that they are low cost, possess good NO-SCR activity at low temperature and high selectivity to N2 with H2-LPG reductant.

Catalyst preparation
Three Mn doped Cu/Al2O3 catalysts with different concentrations were prepared along with Cu/Al2O3 catalyst following the EISA procedure suggested by Li et al. [1].In the synthesis of Copper-alumina catalysts 8.3 mL polyethylene glycol (PEG-300) was dissolved in 150 mL of ethanol at room temperature termed as solution-1.In a container, 12.0 mL of 69 % nitric acid, 3.75 g citric acid anhydrous, 15.30 g (15 mmol) of aluminium iso-propoxide, 15 mol% of copper nitrate trihydrate and requisite amount of Mn(NO3)2 were added in the above solution-1 with vigorous stirring for 10 h.The final solution was dried overnight at 110 °C in an oven, followed by in-situ calcination in flowing air at 500 °C for 5 h.The calcined samples were crushed and sieved to pass a 100 mesh for activity testing.All the chemicals used in the catalyst preparation are of AR grade.For the simplicity in general consideration, the catalysts were name as: Cu/Al2O3 as Cat-A, 0.5 % Mn-Cu/Al2O3 Cat-B, 1.0 % Mn-Cu/Al2O3 Cat-C and 1.5 % Mn-Cu/Al2O3 as Cat-D.

Catalytic activity measurement
The NO-SCR activity tests were studied in a tubular quartz reactor over 200 mg catalyst diluted with 1 mL Al2O3 bed kept over quartz wool under the following reaction conditions: 500 ppm NO, 8 % O2, 1000 ppm NH3, 1000 ppm LPG, 1 % H2 in Ar with total flow rate of 100 mL/ min.Gases were fed from pressurized cylinders.The experimental data were recorded under steady state conditions.The space velocity was 30000 mL.g -1 .h - .The reaction temperatures were varied from ambient to 450 °C.Three different reductants (H2, LPG, and NH3) were used separately under the same experimental conditions.In addition, H2 assisted LPG (H2-LPG) reduction was also investigated.The temperature of reaction was monitored with the help of K-type thermocouple inserted in the thermo-well of the reactor in contact with catalyst bed.The reaction temperature The flow of gas mixture entering the reactor was free from moisture and CO2 via passing them through CaO and KOH pellet trap.The flow rates of different gases were monitored with the help of digital gas flow meters.The inlet and outlet NOx concentrations were determined by Ecophysics CLD 62 chemiluminescence NO/NOx analyzer.The concentration of propane and CO2 as well as the N2 was measured by two online gas chromatographs using FID and TCD detectors (Nucon 5765) and porapack q-column with methanizer and molecular sieve 5A respectively.The conversion of NO at any instant was calculated on the basis of values of the concentration of NO in the feed, NO conversion (XNO) was calculated as follows: and product stream by the following Equation ( 6): (6) The conversion of main LPG constituents, C3H8, C4H10 and i-C4H10 were calculated on the basis of values of their concentrations in the feed and product using the following Equations (7-9): where, the subscripts "in" and "out" indicate the inlet and outlet concentrations respectively at steady state.The change in concentration of C3H8, C4H10 and i-C4H10 is due to redox reactions at any instant is proportional to their respective areas of chromatograms [AC3H8], [AC4H10], and [Ai-C4H10].
The N2 selectivity can be written in terms of concentration of N2 and other by-products (NO2 and N2O) by Equation ( 10): (10)

Catalyst Characterization
X-ray diffractograms were measured on Rigaku Ultima IV X-ray diffractometer (Germany) using the Cu Kα radiation at 40 kV and 40 mA for phase identification.The spectra were recorded between 20 and 80° (2θ).The mean crystallite size (d) of the catalyst was calculated from the line broadening of the most intense reflection using the Scherrer"s formula in Equation (11).(11) where d is the mean crystallite diameter, 0.89 is the Scherrer constant, λ is X-ray wavelength (Cu Kα radiation) = 1.54056Å, and  is effective line width of the observed X-ray reflection, calculated by the expression  2 =B 2 -b 2 ; where B is full width half maximum (FWHM) and b is instrumental broadening determined through the FWHM of the X-ray reflection at 2θ of crystalline SiO2.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to monitor the surface compositions and chemical states of the constituent elements and performed on an Amicus Spectrometer equipped with Mg Kα X-ray radiation.For typical analysis, the source was operated at a voltage of 15 kV and current of 12 mA.The binding energy scale was calibrated by setting the main C 1s line of adventitious impurities at 284.7 eV, giving an uncertainty in peak positions of ~ 0.2 eV.Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) and SEM-EDX were recorded on Zeiss EVO 18 scanning electron microscope (SEM) instrument.An accelerating voltage of 15 kV and magnification of 1000X was applied.Energydispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) was collected on a JEOL JEM 2010 microscope operating at 200 kV equipped with a PGT Imix PC system.Specific surface area (SSA) measurements were performed using Micromeritics ASAP 2020 analyzer by physical adsorption of N2 at the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196 °C), using the BET method in the standard pressure range of 0.05-0.30P/P0.Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of the prepared catalyst was recorded in the range of 400-4000 cm -1 on Shimadzu 8400 FTIR spectrometer with KBr pellets at room temperature.The diffraction peaks of Cu and Mn could not be observed for Mn doped catalysts, which clearly indicated that the Cu and Mn ions were well-dispersed over Al2O3 support.The increase in the amount of Mn doping in Cu/Al2O3, the intensities of Al2O3 diffraction peaks decreased significantly [33].

XPS analysis
X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) were recorded to investigate elemental composition and the oxidation state of the catalysts sample near the surface.Figure 2 (a-d 2(a) reveals that the only Cu, Mn, Al and O elements are present in the catalyst.Using a Gaussian fitting method, it was observed that the Cu2p emission spectra was well fitted with two spin-orbit doublets, implying both Cu + and Cu 2+ in the catalyst sample.The peaks fitted at the binding energies of 934.3 and 948.4 eV attributed to Cu-2p3/2 and Cu-2p1/2 configurations [34,35].Although, it can be proposed that highest Cu + /Cu 2+ are preferable for the reduction of NO.
The XPS spectra in the Mn-2p region are presented in Figure 2(b).The observed binding energies 644.8 eV, and 653.85 eV are associated with the presence of Mn 2+ and Mn 3+ respectively in their respective samples [36,37].BE of Al-2p is shown at 74.6 eV revealed Al 3+ oxidation state as shown in Figure 2(c).The binding energies of O-1s are displayed in Figure 2(d).Generally, there are two different types of oxygen in the catalysts with binding energy 532.2 eV and 534.1 eV, which could be predictable as chemisorbed oxygen and lattice oxygen, respectively [38].The presence of chemisorbed oxygen is small as compared to lattice oxygen in Cat-C.One of noticeable fact is that the amount of oxygen is less in Cat-C as compared to all three catalysts due to absence of lattice oxygen which creates oxygen vacancies for reduction reactions.

Scanning Electron Micrographs (SEM)
SEM analysis was done to study the surface morphology of the catalysts.Figure 3 shows the SEM micrographs of Cat-A and Mn doped Cat-B, Cat-C and Cat-D.It can be visualized that all the catalysts have particles of irregular shapes and sizes.The shape of Cat-A was the agglomerated bulk particles of the largest size.The size of the particles of Cat-C (Figure 3c) was the smallest as well as it possessed open texture pores in comparison to the other catalysts.Other catalyst samples were appeared to be agglomerated whereas Cat-C was well dispersed separated particles of size in the range of 2.07-3.32μm.Since the particles of Cat-C were the smallest and well dispersed it decreases the resistance of internal masstransport of reactants and products.Beyond the optimum content of Mn (1.0 %) in the catalyst, different structures of agglomerated particles of larger size were formed.Hence, the optimum composition of Mn was 1.0 % in Cat-C for low temperature SCR of NO.

Energy-dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDX)
The elemental composition of the Cat-C microspheres was first examined by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) measurements.Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) results from different regions of micrographs depicts that all the samples were pure due to presence of Cu, Mn, Al, and O peaks.No other element present in the spectra as shown in Figure 4.
EDX spectrum details of all three catalysts samples with their respective weight and atomic % is given in Table 2. Elemental map-ping analysis and corresponding EDX-mapping images clearly elucidate the confirm the formation of respective atomic content in their relevant structure.
SEM-EDX confirmed the presence of Cu, Mn, Al, and O elements present in the precursors used in the preparation of the catalysts.Cu and Mn dispersions on the Al2O3 surface was found to be sufficient, with some agglomerates appearing for the catalysts.

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
The term "Fresh catalyst" meant freshly prepared Cat-C (unused) and "used catalyst" was after 50 h of run on stream for H2-LPG-SCR of NO.FTIR of fresh and used catalysts were recorded in the range of 500-4000 cm -1 on Shimadzu 8400 FTIR spectrometer with KBr pellets at room temperature in terms of transmittance.The absorption spectra of the two catalysts during the course of H2-LPG-SCR reac-  The bands at 1700-1300 cm -1 are associated to the N-C stretching modes, which are caused by the different doping level [39].The bands at 1200-1600 cm -1 were slightly stronger, indicating that a few of the Lewis acid sites were occupied by bridging nitrate species [40].The NO conversion changed from 95.56 % to 90.7 % at 150 °C with accelerated ageing after 50h.As we can see from Figure 5 and Table 3, C≡N stretch i.e. nirile group is missing due to reductant (H2-LPG), responsible for better NO reduction at the surface of Cat-C.FTIR transmission spectra of the catalysts are comparison shown in Table 3.

BET surface area measurement
The specific surface area and pore size distribution were determined by BET and BJH methods with low temperature adsorption on all four catalysts.The BET surface area, pore volume and pore diameter of respective catalysts were tabulated in Table 4.The BET surface area data indicates that the BET surface area of Cat-A, Cat-B, and Cat-D are smaller than Cat-C (50.29 m 2 g −1 ), because of the high dispersion shown in SEM micrographs.The Cat-C catalyst has the maximum BET surface area and pore volume due to their high pore diameter compared to rest three catalyst.The BET surface area of the Cat-D was 46.85 m 2 /g due to the formation of a large matrix.The above results showed that the introduction of a 1 % of Mn in the Cu/Al2O3 catalyst can curb the particle shape and increase its surface area, which are beneficial in improving best catalytic activity for the SCR reaction.
The sufficient amount of metal oxide contraction that promote reduction behavior of the catalyst, which could be originated from the strong interaction between Cu and Mn over the Al2O3 support [41].As for Cat-C, its higher pore volume and BET surface area may be benefited from comparatively smaller mesopores.The particle sizes of Cat-C sample shown by the SEM images were consistent with the BET measurements.The enhanced BET surface areas of Cat-C is also favorable to the adsorption of NO on them, resulted in the significant increase in NO conversion, in turn facilitates the H2-LPG-SCR reaction.
The low-temperature SCR activity of Cat-C was optimum, revealing that BET surface area was an important decisive factor for catalytic activity.The comparatively high specific surface area exposed to more active sites offered

Catalyst Test for NO reduction
In all catalytic tests, the amount of NO2 and N2O in the product stream were found negligible.Therefore, NO was mainly reduced to N2.All the measurements were taken at steady state by ramping up the temperature.

Performance of catalysts using NH3 reductant
NH3 is a well-established reductant for NO-SCR.The NH3-SCR performance for NO reduction over different catalysts as shown in Figure 6.It is very clear from the figure that Mnpromoted catalyst showed better performance than Cat-A across the whole temperature range.The NO conversion with respect to temperature showed maxima over all the catalysts.At higher temperature beyond the maximum conversion of NO, reductant started oxidizing directly with oxygen present in air, in place of SCR of NO, so at higher temperature activity of NO conversion decreased.It can be noted down from the figure that the optimum Mn doping in the catalyst was 1.0 mol %, resulting maximum NO conversion to 90 % at 250 °C.Beyond this concentration of 1.0 mol % Mn in the catalyst the conversion decreased in whole range of temperature studied.The catalyst with 1.5 % Mn exhibited lower activity; this may be due to the fact that abundance of Mn does not ensure the increase in catalyst activity as 1 % Mn is the optimum quantity for SCR of NO under the given experimental conditions.It can be noted from the BET characterization that the specific surface area of the catalyst increases with increase in the concentration of Mn upto 1.0 mol%.Further increase in the Mn concentration decreases the surface area of the catalyst, due to agglomeration of particles due to deposition of excess Mn over active sites of Cu.

Performance of catalysts using LPG reductant
The activity of all the catalysts was compared using LPG reductant for NO conversion and the results are shown in Figure 7. Cat-C sample showed the highest SCR activity giving 92 % NO conversion at a temperature of 250 ºC.Whereas, the Cat-A catalyst showed 69 % NO reduction at higher temperature of 303 ºC.It is clear from experimental data that Mn doped catalyst have lowered down NO reduction temperature.The above experiments were performed using NH3 and LPG as reductants under the above mentioned experimental conditions.But, due to low NO reduction activity, hydrogen assisted LPG (H2-LPG) reductant was used to enhance the catalyst activity.

Performance of catalysts using H2-LPG reductant
The activity of all the catalysts for NO conversion was compared using H2-LPG reductant and the results are shown in Figure 8.The Cat-C sample exhibited the highest SCR activity showing 95.56 % NO conversion at low temperature of 150 o C. Whereas, the Cat-A catalyst showed 73 % NO reduction at high temperature of 300 o C. Figures 6-8 illustrates that the optimum Mn doping was 1.0 mol%.Thus, appropriate composition, textural and morphological characteristics may be the reason for the highest activity of Cat-C.
The catalytic performance of Cat-C showed lower activity at higher temperature due to adsorption sites were used by the reactant in due course of time, which dropped the catalyst activities.The reductants were oxidized at high temperatures and this significantly dropped the NO reduction in case of NH3 and LPG.The trend differs in H2-LPG due to synergistic effect of reductants over the better dispersed surface.Whereas, at lower temperature Cat-C exhibited best NO reduction to N2 due to increased dispersion of smallest particles, which enhanced its BET surface area.In case of Cat- The experiments were performed to find out the best low temperature NO reduction catalyst.From the experimental results it is clear that Cat-C showed the best results.To elaborate more precisely, we further discussed the effect of reductants over the best catalyst (Cat-C).

Effect of reductants on Cat-C catalyst
To simplify the complexity of all the results, the effects of three reductants (NH3, LPG, H2-LPG) for NO conversion over the best selected Cat-C is shown in Figure 9.The characteristic temperature (T10), i.e. 10 % conversion of NO with H2-LPG was observed at 29 °C, while it was at 26 °C for LPG reductant and 28 °C for NH3 reductant (Table 5).Similarly, T50 was attained at 65 °C for H2-LPG, 82 °C for LPG and at 75 °C for NH3.While, Tmax for NO reduction over Cat-C was shown at 150 °C with 95.56 % NO conversion for H2-LPG reductant, 92.0 % conversion of NO for LPG at 250 °C and 90 % NO conversion for NH3 at 250 °C.On the other hand NH3 reductant showed their NO reduction efficiency at comparatively higher temperatures (205 ºC).Hence, the experimental results showed that H2-LPG is the best reductant in comparison to other two reductants (NH3 and LPG).
LPG was chosen as a reducing agent as it leads to a strong decrease in Gibbs free energy value of NO reduction to N2, in addition to its low cost and easy of availability.H2 addition in LPG not only lowered down the temperature but also improved conversion of NO reduction.It is well documented that hydrogen promotes the redox reactions over Ag/Al2O3 catalyst.H2 played an essential role in the activation of molecular oxygen, as suggested by Richter et al. [42] and responsible for the promotion of the steady-state NO reduction [42].The addition of hydrogen leads to decreased activation energy of the rate-determining step or to a change in the rate-determining step.O2 activation by hydrogen is relatively rapid and is not involved in the rate-determining step in the H2-C3H8-SCR reaction.This indicates that the hydrogen addition promotes the C3H8-SCR reaction through the activation of reductant (C3H8) [43,Figure 8. NO reduction performance of all catalysts using H2-LPG reductant   -9) and Table 5 that best low temperature NO reduction is possible with Cat-C catalyst.Thus, the order of catalyst activity followed the same trend for all reductants: Cat-C > Cat-D > Cat-B > Cat-A.
The combination of highly active catalyst and suitable reductants, NO reduction is achievable at low temperature.The histogram plot of NO conversions vs various catalysts and reductants are shown in Figure 10.It can be concluded that the best catalyst and the best reductant for NO reduction are Cat-C and H2-LPG under the experimental condition of the present study.

LPG conversion
Figure 11 shows LPG conversion over Cat-C with and without H2 assistance to reduce redundancy at low temperature window.As discussed earlier LPG does not show better NO reduction, so it was not mentioned in the manuscript experimental work.H2-addition was beneficial showing total LPG conversion at 165 o C, i.e. 25 o C less than without H2 addition [23].Small addition of hydrogen synergistically promoted reduction of NO and being redox reaction simultaneous oxidation of LPG reductant increased.It was found that at 75 ºC also NO conversion with LPG was (33.7 %) less than H2-LPG (45.78 %).
Figure 11 shows that the hydrogen addition increases reduction of NO consequently oxidation of LPG increases.As a result of combination of high activity catalyst and apposite reductant, NO conversion is achieved at relatively low temperature.Therefore, it can be concluded that catalyst has the potential to achieve the goal of NOx emission standard from diesel, petrol as well as LPG-fueled vehicles using H2-LPG-SCR.

Catalyst selectivity
The catalytic activity tests were performed on three catalysts for NO reduction and the  negligible amount of NO2 and N2O were found in the product stream.Therefore, catalyst selectivity was shown in terms of N2 only.In order to reduce awkwardness in the manuscript here we are presenting the graph of best catalyst selectivity.It is clear from Figure 12 that the trend of best catalyst Cat-C selectivity to N2 on different reductants is as follows: H2-LPG > NH3 > LPG.

Stability test
The stability tests were conducted for Cat-C under the steady state in the same experimental conditions at 150 °C for reduction of NO in a continuous run for 56 h.In the beginning at this temperature 95.56 % NO conversion was achieved.Accelerated ageing starts with 2 h heating at 500 °C under the run duration of 6 h at 150 °C, repeatedly.Practically after 50 h of ageing still no significant deactivation was observed under the same experimental conditions.Figure 13 showed accelerated ageing of Cat-C for NO reduction using H2-LPG reductant.Thus, practically there is no deactivation of the catalyst occurred in the stability test under the present experimental conditions stud-ied.

Conclusions
The enhanced de-NOx performance of Cat-C synthesize by EISA method using PEG-300 template.Among all the catalysts 1.0 mol%-Cu/Al2O3 display hydrothermally stable superior H2 assisted LPG SCR activity with elevated N2 selectivity over a wide range of temperatures.The catalytic activity attributed to its unique textural characteristics and highly dispersed Mn crystallites which exhibited the redox property with lattice oxygen.The comparatively high specific surface area exposed to more active sites offered less diffusional resistance and facilitates the redox process at lower temperatures.Hydrogen addition promoted reduction of NO consequently increases oxidation of LPG.The results showed that the amount of Mn remarkably influenced the activity of Cu/Al2O3.The presence of Mn lowers down NO reduction temperature, consequently Cat-C turn into the most active stable catalyst which can be widely applied in different pollution abatement (ecological safety) applications.
3.1.1X-Ray diffractionX-ray diffraction (XRD) studies were carried out to identify the crystalline phases of the catalyst samples.The powder XRD patterns of the crystalline nature of Cat-A and Mn doped catalysts (Cat-B, Cat-C and Cat-D) were confirmed by collecting intensity data over a 2θ = 20-80° is depicted in the Figure1.The characteristics reflections of Cat-A as well as three different concentration of Mn doped catalysts showed single diffraction peak at 2θ = 22.72°, which could be attributed to a single phase crystalline structure of Al2O3 (JCPDS#310026).

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. XPS peak fitting of (a) Cu, (b) Mn, (c) Al and (d) O for Cat-A, B, C and D.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. FTIR spectra of fresh and used Cat-C catalysts

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. NO reduction performance of all catalysts using LPG reductant

Figure 10 .
Figure 10.NO conversion performance for NH3, LPG and H2-LPG as reductant over different catalysts

Figure 13 .
Figure 13.Accelerated ageing of Cat-C for NO reduction

Table 1 .
Gibbs free energy at 500 K for reduction of NO in the presence of various reductants

Table 2 .
Weight % and atomic % (EDX elemental data) for all four catalysts

Table 3 .
Transmittance frequency (peak) bond and functional group details on the best Cat-C fresh (t1) and used (t2) catalyst using H2-LPG-SCR of NO

Table 4 .
BET surface area and pore parameters of all catalysts