Catalytic Hydrolysis of Urea with Fly Ash for Generation of Ammonia in a Batch Reactor for Flue Gas Conditioning and NOx Reduction

Abstract

Ammonia is a highly volatile noxious material with adverse physiological effects, which become intolerable even at very low concentrations and present substantial environmental and operating hazards and risk. Yet ammonia has long been known to be used for feedstock of flue gas conditioning and NOx reduction. Urea as the source of ammonia for the production of ammonia has the obvious advantages that no ammonia shipping, handling, and storage is required. The process of this invention minimizes the risks and hazards associated with the transport, storage, and use of anhydrous and aqueous ammonia. Yet no such rapid urea conversion process is available as per requirement of high conversion in shorter time, so here we study the catalytic hydrolysis of urea for fast conversion in a batch reactor. The catalyst used in this study is fly ash, a waste material originating in great amounts in combustion processes. A number of experiments were carried out in a batch reactor at different catalytic doses, temperatures, times, and at a constant concentration of urea solution 10% by weight, and equilibrium and kinetic studies have been made.