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Multi-stage ammonia production for sorption selective catalytic reduction of NOx

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Abstract

Sorption selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) (sorption-SCR) has ever been proposed for replacing commercial urea selective catalytic reduction of NOx (urea-SCR), while only the single-stage sorption cycle is hitherto adopted for sorption-SCR. Herein, various multi-stage ammonia production cycles is built to solve the problem of relative high starting temperature with ammonia transfer (AT) unit and help detect the remaining ammonia in ammonia storage and delivery system (ASDS) with ammonia warning (AW) unit. Except for the singlestage ammonia production cycle with MnCl2, other sorption-SCR strategies all present overwhelming advantages over urea-SCR considering the much higher NOx conversion driven by the heat source lower than 100°C and better matching characteristics with low-temperature catalysts. Furthermore, the required mass of sorbent for each type of sorption-SCR is less than half of the mass of AdBlue for urea-SCR. Therefore, the multifunctional multi-stage sorption-SCR can realize compact and renewable ammonia storage and delivery with low thermal energy consumption and high NOx conversion, which brings a bright potential for efficient commercial de-NOx technology.

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Abbreviations

c :

Specific heat capacity/(J·(kg·K)−1)

D :

Driving distance with per kilogram ammonia/km

m :

Mass/kg

N :

Cycle index

p :

Pressure/Pa

Q :

Heat/J

R :

Gas constant/(J·(kg·K)−1)

t :

Time/h

T :

Temperature/K

v :

Average driving speed/(km·h−1)

V :

Volume/m3

x :

Sorption capacity/(g·g−1)

β :

Mass proportion of ammonia inside sorbent

ΔH :

Enthalpy change/(J·mol−1)

ΔS :

Entropy change/(J·(mol·K)−1)

ΔT :

Temperature difference/K

η :

Thermal efficiency/(g·kJ−1)

ρ :

Density/(kg·m−3)

c:

Cycle

de:

De-NOx

des:

Desorption

h:

High

m:

Middle

out:

Output

s:

Sorbent

sen:

Sensible

sta:

Starting

t:

Theoretical

tr:

Transfer

ASDS:

Ammonia storage and delivery system

AT:

Ammonia transfer

AW:

Ammonia warning

DEF:

Diesel exhaust fluid

ENG-TSA:

Expanded nature graphite treated by the sulfuric acid

HC:

Hydrocarbon

NSR:

NOx storage and reduction

SCR:

Selective catalytic reduction of NOx

SCR-CC SCR:

catalytic converter

SCR-ECU:

SCR electronic control unit

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for the Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 51825602).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Key Laboratory of Power Machinery and Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Chen Zhang, Guoliang An, Liwei Wang & Shaofei Wu

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  1. Chen Zhang
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  2. Guoliang An
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  3. Liwei Wang
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  4. Shaofei Wu
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Correspondence to Liwei Wang.

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Zhang, C., An, G., Wang, L. et al. Multi-stage ammonia production for sorption selective catalytic reduction of NOx. Front. Energy 16, 840–851 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-021-0797-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-021-0797-1

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