Summary 1 Diss. No. 20813 Catalytic Urea Decomposition, Side-Reactions
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Summary Diss. No. 20813 Catalytic urea decomposition, side-reactions and urea evaporation in the selective catalytic reduction of NOx A dissertation submitted to ETH ZURICH for the degree of Doctor of Sciences presented by ANDREAS MANUEL BERNHARD M.Sc., University of Berne Born April 29th, 1984 citizen of Seeberg accepted on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. A. Wokaun, examiner Prof. Dr. J. A. van Bokhoven, co-examiner Dr. O. Kröcher, co-examiner 2012 1 Summary 2 Summary Acknowledgements I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Alexander Wokaun for giving me the opportunity to carry out this thesis at Paul Scherrer Institut and for accompanying the thesis by regular meetings. I thank Dr. Oliver Kröcher a lot for the supervision, for providing advice and for proofreading all my reports and publications. I thank Prof. Dr. Jeroen van Bokhoven for taking the task as co-examiner. I am grateful for the constant support by Martin Elsener. He helped me with experimental work, but also with data analysis and interpretation. I thank Dr. Izabela Czekaj for performing DFT calculations to make an important contribution to two of my publications. I would like to thank my fellow PhD student Dr. Daniel Peitz for his tremendous effort on method development. I’m grateful to Dr. Tilman Schildhauer for bringing in his expertise in chemical engineering. I also thank the former and present group members Dr. Max Mehring, Lukas Bächli, Dr. Sandro Brandenberger, Dr. Maria Casapu, Dr. Tinku Baidya, Valentina Marchionni, Dr. Anastasios Kampolis, Dr. Davide Ferri, the internship student David Sherwood and all the other colleagues who contributed to this thesis or helped me in another way. My special thanks are directed to the industry partner TOTAL (France) for funding. Finally, I thank my parents who have always supported me. 3 Summary Table of contents Summary .................................................................................................................. 8 Zusammenfassung ................................................................................................ 10 Abbreviations and general formulae .................................................................. 12 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 13 1.1. Background .............................................................................................. 13 1.2. Selective catalytic reduction of NOx .................................................... 16 1.2.1. NH3-slip vs. DeNOx curves ........................................................... 17 1.3. NH3-supply .............................................................................................. 19 1.4. Urea thermolysis and evaporation ........................................................ 21 1.5. Urea decomposition byproducts and catalyst deactivation .............. 25 1.6. Catalytic urea decomposition ................................................................ 27 1.6.1. Anatase TiO2 ..................................................................................... 29 1.7. Scope of the presented Thesis .............................................................. 29 2. Experimental .................................................................................................. 32 2.1. Setup for investigations on NH3-precursors ...................................... 32 2.1.1. Process scheme and heating ........................................................... 32 2.1.2. Gas mixing ........................................................................................ 34 2.1.3. Dosing of the liquid reducing agent .............................................. 35 2.1.4. HNCO generation for HNCO hydrolysis experiments ............. 37 2.1.5. Reactor ............................................................................................... 38 2.1.6. Monoliths .......................................................................................... 40 2.1.7. FTIR spectroscopy: existing method ............................................ 41 2.1.8. Extension of the FTIR spectroscopy method by urea, EtOH and MeOH ..................................................................................................... 43 4 Summary 2.1.9. Method testing: urea-SCR in the laboratory ................................ 48 2.1.10. Method testing: reproducibility ..................................................... 51 2.1.11. Method testing: spray evaporation ............................................... 54 2.2. Liquid-quench of the product gas ........................................................ 58 2.3. HPLC analysis ......................................................................................... 60 2.4. TPD experiments .................................................................................... 63 2.4.1. Setup ................................................................................................... 63 2.4.2. Monoliths .......................................................................................... 65 2.4.3. Experiment types ............................................................................. 66 2.5. Chemicals ................................................................................................. 68 2.6. Catalyst preparation and characterization ........................................... 69 3. Urea evaporation at atmospheric pressure ................................................ 72 3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 72 3.2. Experimental and theoretical details .................................................... 75 3.2.1. Measuring procedure ....................................................................... 75 3.2.2. Computational details ...................................................................... 77 3.3. Results ....................................................................................................... 77 3.3.1. Desorption of urea under TPD conditions ................................. 77 3.3.2. FTIR spectrum of monomolecular urea ...................................... 81 3.3.3. Desorption of urea at constant temperature ............................... 85 3.3.4. Conclusions ....................................................................................... 91 4. Urea hydrolysis and side-reactions on titanium dioxide .......................... 92 4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 92 4.2. Experimental ........................................................................................... 94 4.3. Results and Discussion .......................................................................... 96 5 Summary 4.3.1. Overview ........................................................................................... 96 4.3.2. Urea hydrolysis ................................................................................. 98 4.3.3. Biuret decomposition .................................................................... 101 4.3.4. Melamine hydrolysis ...................................................................... 111 4.3.5. Hydrolysis and de-polymerization of CYA ................................ 114 4.3.6. CYA formation ............................................................................... 117 4.4. Conclusions ........................................................................................... 120 5. Urea adsorption on titanium dioxide ....................................................... 122 5.1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 122 5.2. Experimental and theoretical details .................................................. 124 5.2.1. DRIFT samples and catalyst coating .......................................... 124 5.2.2. Adsorption and thermolysis of gaseous urea on TiO2 ............. 125 5.2.3. HPLC analysis ................................................................................ 126 5.2.4. DRIFT measurements ................................................................... 127 5.2.5. Computational details .................................................................... 127 5.3. Results and Discussion ........................................................................ 128 5.3.1. Confirmation of urea adsorption by HPLC analysis ................ 128 5.3.2. Quasi-stationary thermolysis of gaseous urea on a TiO2-coated monolith ........................................................................................................ 130 5.3.3. DRIFT measurements at 80°C .................................................... 131 5.3.4. Comparison of DRIFT measurements with DFT calculations .... .......................................................................................................... 136 5.3.5. Urea thermolysis followed by DRIFT spectroscopy ................ 141 5.4. Conclusions ........................................................................................... 147 6. Catalytic urea decomposition ..................................................................... 148 6 Summary 6.1. Symbols .................................................................................................. 148 6.2. Introduction ........................................................................................... 149 6.3. Experimental ........................................................................................