Performance Evaluation for Fast Conversion from Urea to an Ammonia Conversion Technology with a Plasma Burner

Recently, fine dust in atmosphere have been considerably issued as a harmful element for human. Nitrogen oxide ($NO_x$) exhausted from diesel engines and power plants has been disclosed as a main source of secondary production of fine dust. In order to prevent exhausting these nitrogenous compounds into atmosphere, a treatment system with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalyst with ammonia as a reductant has been used in various industries. Urea solution has been widely studied to supply ammonia into a SCR catalytic reactor, safely. However, the conversion of urea solution to ammonia has several challenges, especially on a slow conversion velocity. In the present study, a fast urea conversion system including a plasma burner was suggested and designed to evaluate the performances of urea conversion and initial operation time. A designed lab-scale facility has a plasma burner, urea nozzle, mixer, and SCR catalyst which is for hydrolysis of isocyane. Flow rate of methane that is a fuel of the plasma burner was varied to control temperatures in the urea conversion facility. From experimental results, it is found that urea can be converted into ammonia using high temperature condition of above $400^{\circ}C$. In the designed test facility, it is found that ammonia can be produced within 1 min from urea injection and the result shows prospect commercialization of proposed technology in the SCR facilities.

플라즈마 버너를 적용한 요소수에서 암모니아로의 고속 전환 기술 성능 평가