Molecular sieve catalysts are often applied in motor vehicles, and the temperature of motor vehicle exhaust can be as high as 800 ℃ above, and the exhaust always has indefinite quantity water. Under this condition, the catalyst have to undergo hydrothermal aging, leading to the collapse of the framework and the agglomeration of active components, thus its activity will be reduced, and also its service life. At present, the stability of hydrothermal aging of molecular sieve catalysts is one of the important criteria for commercial application. Over the past decade, there were many reports on the hydrothermal aging of molecular sieve catalysts. Kwak
et al. thermally aged four kinds of Cu-zeolite catalysts (Cu-beta, Cu-ZSM5, Cu-SSZ-13, Cu-Y) at 800 ℃ for 16 h. It was found that the aluminum coordination environment of Cu-ZSM-5 and Cu-
β changed obviously, accompanied with Cu-aluminate species and CuO were found in two catalysts. And Cu-SSZ-13 is mainly reduced in redox capacity [
78]. Young
et al. analyzed the hydrothermal aging and deactivation mechanism of Cu-SSZ-13 under different Cu/Al and Si/Al conditions. It was found that the higher the Cu/Al, the more serious decrease of activity caused by hydrothermal aging [
72]. Since the D6R (double-6-ring subunit) site was first occupied by the Cu
2+ ion, the CHA site also began to be occupied as Cu/Al ratio gradually increased. However, because of the unstable nature of Cu
2+ on CHA sites, condensation was more likely to occur than Cu
2+, which led to the formation of CuO
x. Therefore, it was proposed that the main reason for the hydrothermal aging deactivation of Cu-SSZ-13 was the growth of CuO
x destroyed zeolite cages and pores, which led to the structure collapse. Other researchers believed that hydrothermal aging will lead to dealumination of Cu-SSZ-13 catalysts, resulting in the serious reduction of Brønsted acid sites and the crystallinity decrease. At the same time, the isolated Al(OH)
3 ion and Cu
2+ ions combined to form CuAlO
x species, which deactivated the Cu species [
79-
82]. However, there are different opinions on Cu-SAPO-34 about the hydrothermal aging. Su
et al. showed that vacancies in the framework of SAPO-34 caused by desilication can be repaired by migration of Al and P atoms outside the framework to defects. After aging, active Cu species in Cu/SAPO-34 zeolites tend to accumulate, which enhanced the redox ability and maintained its acidity [
83]. But some studies have shown that dealumination, Cu
2+ migration and weakening of acidity can occur both in Cu-SAPO-34 and Cu-SSZ-13 after hydrothermal aging, leading to the decline in NH
3-SCR performance [
79]. Fan
et al. found that after aging at 950 ℃ for 3 h, the crystallinity of SAPO-34 began to decrease. After 6 h, the zeolite crystals began to transition to SiO
2 and AlPO
4 phases. Meanwhile, the Si-OH-Al bond was broken, the Brønsted acid site and Cu
2+ species were reduced. And the higher the Cu loading, the more obvious the Si-OH-Al bond breakage [
84,
85]. Furthermore, Wang
et al. found that after hydrothermal aging (at 700 ℃ in 10 vol% H
2O/air for 48 h), CuO
2 species on the Cu-SAPO-34 surface would be transferred to the ion exchange site, thus improving the activity of the catalyst at 200–260 ℃. But in general, hydrothermal aging usually causes Cu-SAPO-34 to lose a large amount of acidity [
86,
87]. Peter
et al. showed the change process of catalyst structure after aging of Cu-ZSM-5 and Cu-IM-5 catalysts: (1) partial dealuminization of molecular sieve, (2) reversible migration of Cu species, (3) forming some inactive or stable Cu-Al clusters (Fig. S1 in Supporting information). They also indicated that the stability of Al in the framework had great influence on the properties of Cu-ZSM-5 and Cu-IM-5 catalysts after hydrothermal aging [
88].