Jointly published by React.Kinet.Catal.Lett. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Vol. 80, No. 2, 375-381 and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (2003) 0133-1736/2003/US$ 20.00. © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest. All rights reserved. RKCL4304 KINETICS OF METHANE COMBUSTION ON Fe 2 O 3 /TiO 2 CATALYSTS Gina Pecchi * , Patricio Reyes and Raúl Zamora Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile Received March 7, 2003 In revised form June 19, 2003 Accepted June 23, 2003 Abstract The objective of this work was to study the kinetics of methane combustion for a series of Fe 2 O 3 /TiO 2 catalysts. An increase in activity is observed as iron loading increases, and can be attributed to an increase of surface coverage by Fe 2 O 3 species. Kinetic studies revealed that the reaction orders with respect to methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water are 1, 0, 0 and –1 respectively. Keywords: Iron, titania, combustion, methane INTRODUCTION Catalytic combustion is one of several industrial processes used for pollution abatement. Catalysts able to perform combustion are divided in two groups: noble metals and transition metal oxides. The noble metals, such as Pt and Pd [1, 2], are more efficient because the reactions may start at temperatures as low as room temperature, while transition metal oxides are less efficient but more resistant at high temperatures. With regard to transition metal oxides their low cost and availability as well as their interesting properties (e.g., good activity as photocatalysts in the case of Fe and an increase in the stability in the case of Cu) make them excellent candidates to rival noble metals [3]. The use _______________________________________ * Corresponding author