• Clean Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.273-279
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• 2009

$SF_6$, which has a high global warming potential, can be decomposed to sulfur and fluorine compounds through hydrolysis by $H_2O$ or oxidation by $O_2$ over solid acid catalysts. In this study ${\gamma}-Al_2O_3$ was employed as the solid acid catalyst for the abatement of $SF_6$ and its catalytic activity was investigated with respect to the reaction temperature and the space velocity. The catalytic activity for $SF_6$ decomposition by the hydrolysis reached the maximum at and above 973 K with the space velocity of $20,000\;ml/g_{-cat}{\cdot}h$, exhibiting a conversion very close to 100%. When the space velocity was lower than $45,000\;ml/g_{-cat}{\cdot}h$, the conversion was maintained at the maximum value. On the other hand, the conversion of $SF_6$ by the oxidation was about 20% under the same conditions. The SEM and XRD analyses revealed that the ${\gamma}-Al_2O_3$ was transformed to ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ during the hydrolysis and to $AlF_3$ during the oxidation, respectively. The size of $AlF_3$ after the oxidation was over $20\;{\mu}m$, and its catalytic activity was low due to the low surface area. Therefore, it was concluded that the hydrolysis over ${\gamma}-Al_2O_3$ was much more favorable than the oxidation for the catalytic decomposition of $SF_6$.