Equilibrium studies on hydrolysis of urea in a semi-batch reactor for production of ammonia to reduce hazardous pollutants from flue gases

Abstract

The increasing environmental awareness and the mandate of the pollution control agencies in various part of country for lowering emission of air pollutants such as CO 2, NO x, SO 2 and fly ash emissions, has increased the urgency for reviewing options and alternatives to accomplish the above objective. The addition of ammonia into the flue gas stream as a conditioning agent is found to be used in recent years for the reduction of air pollutants. Flue gas conditioning requires in situ generation of ammonia as the transportation and storage of anhydrous ammonia is hazardous in nature. The equilibrium study on hydrolysis of urea was done in a semi-batch glass reactor to investigate the effect of reaction temperature, initial feed concentration and stirring speed on ammonia production. Few experiments were carried out in a semi-batch reactor at atmospheric pressure by using different concentration of urea solution from 10 to 40 wt% of urea to water and equilibrium study has been done. The study reveals that conversion increases exponentially with an increase in temperature but the conversion decreases with increase in the inlet feed concentration of urea solution. Furthermore, the effect of stirring speed on conversion has also been studied and it found that conversion increases with increase in stirring speed.