Multi-objective optimization study of hydrothermal aging on NOx-assisted soot catalytic combustion and secondary pollution emission in regeneration of CeO2 catalytic diesel particulate filter

The present study aimed to explore the effect of hydrothermal aging on the heterogeneous catalytic combustion process of soot in CeO2 catalytic diesel particular filter and the formation of secondary pollutants (N2O and CO). The present study was based on a fixed-bed experimental bench for NOx-assisted soot catalytic oxidation in CeO2-CDPF with different soot loading and catalyst coating amounts. A non-linear regression surrogate model and a multi-objective optimization decision approach were used to analyze the trade-off relationship between the design variables and the optimization objectives. The results showed that lower levels of soot loading (2.5 g/L), CeO2 catalyst coating amount (2.5 g/L) and higher NOx concentration (1000 ppm) in fresh catalysts were favorable for improving the performance of soot-assisted catalytic combustion and minimizing the formation of N2O and CO. However, it was observed that higher levels of catalyst coating amount (10 g/L) resulted in better soot catalytic combustion performance with lower N2O and CO emissions. Global sensitivity analysis showed a positive correlation between N2O and CO peak concentrations and peak temperatures with soot loading, but a negative correlation with catalyst loading. Over time, hydrothermal aging of CDPF caused the inhibitory effect of CeO2 catalyst on N2O to shift from negative to positive correlation, while also decreasing the synergistic performance of NOx in soot catalytic combustion.