Effect of Alternative Fuels on SCR Chemistry

Sammanfattning: In the time line of world industrial age, the most important era begins in the late 18th century when the use of fossil fuels was growing intensively. This approach has continued and developed up to the 20th century. Besides, this trend has had side effects like polluting environment. Air pollution is one of the critical issues nowadays that stems from using hydrocarbon fuels. One type of the problematic compounds in polluting air is nitrogen oxides that can be produced in combustion process from engines and industrial plants. Different solutions have been suggested to remove air polluting compounds. One method for removing nitrogen oxides is using the mechanism of Selective Catalytic Reduction in silencer of engines. This method has become practical in trucks’ engines. Therefore, research on SCR chemistry is important for improving the usage of this method in removing nitrogen oxides. SCR has its own problems when used in trucks. One of the problems is formation of white clumps on pipe wall of silencers using SCR which can cause back pressure in the engines and costs a lot to remove them from engines.  This report evaluates the effect of alternative fuels on SCR chemistry .Different parameters affecting deposit formation are studied and evaluated. Ethanol is one of the controversial fuels used in engines and acetic acid is one its byproducts. Also, urea and its by products are important materials in SCR chemistry, too. Consequently, the first part of the report studies the influence of acetic acid and Ferrite steel, one of the usual steels in silencers of engines, on urea, biuret and cyanuric acid decomposition. The instruments used in the first part include TGA-DSC (Thermo Gravimetric Analysis-Differential Scanning Calorimetric) which is connected to FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy).In the second part of the report, the effect of diesel exhaust and ethanol exhaust on cyanuric acid evaporation rate is evaluated. Cyanuric acid is the main compound forming deposit in silencers. The instrument used in the second part is TGA. The third part consists surveying effect of Adblue, aqueous solution of urea, and additivised Adblue, surfactant added Adblue to improve its efficiency, in a patented rig that is scaled down of a silencer of truck. The most important result for the first part includes the effect of Ferrite steel treated with acetic acid that accelerated the decomposition of cyanuric acid. This result can be investigated more in order to be used in silencers to accelerate the decomposition rate of clumps formed. In the second part, it is found out that cyanuric acid evaporates faster under ethanol exhaust than diesel exhaust. The third part’s results shows that in the current assembly of pipes in the rig, Additivised Adblue loses its improved efficiency which is an interesting result for engine welding in order to avoid this type of connection in engines.