The activity of fresh and hydrothermally aged zeolite-based catalysts in the NH3-selective catalytic reduction (SCR) reaction with excess of oxygen were studied. In addition, the effect of NO2 in the gas feed as well as the acidity of the catalysts for the SCR activity was investigated. The studied catalysts were hydrogen, copper, iron and silver ion exchanged ZSM-5, mordenite, beta, ferrierite, and Y-zeolites. The investigation verifies that the zeolite-based catalysts are very promising for the ammonia SCR reaction. Especially, the activity at low and high temperatures was higher than the activity of commercial vanadia-based catalysts. From the studied catalysts, Fe-beta was the most potential one. The presence of NO2 in the inlet flow enhanced significantly the catalytic activity of fresh and hydrothermally aged zeolite catalysts. This suggests that the oxidation of NO to NO2 is probably the rate-determining step for the SCR reaction. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.