Method of Removing Nitrogen Oxides From Plant Exhaust

This invention relates to a method of removing nitrogen oxides such as NO or NO.sub.2 contained in exhaust discharged from, for example, chemical plants or burning apparatuses so as to render the exhaust harmless.

As used herein, the term "nitrogen oxides" is defined to mean NO, NO.sub.2 and mixtures thereof. These nitrogen oxides are released in the form contained in exhaust from various chemical plants such as boiler firing furnaces, sintering plants of iron works, sulfuric acid plants using nitric acid, nitric acid plants and powder plants. Removal of the nitrogen oxides from the exhaust to make it harmless to plant and animal life has been considered an important problem awaiting an immediate solution from the standpoint of maintaining environmental safety.

To date, therefore, a large number of processes have been proposed for elimination of nitrogen oxides from plant exhaust. The known dry processes include, for example, the type which carries out the catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides by gas phase reaction using various reducing agents and the type which effects the adsorption of nitrogen oxides to activated carbon.

Some wet processes already published consist in absorbing nitrogen oxides in an alkaline aqueous solution containing, for example, NH.sub.4 .sup.+, Na.sup.+, K.sup.+, Ca.sup.+.sup.+ or Mg.sup.+.sup.+.

Further, known from old is a process of absorbing the nitrogen oxides of plant exhaust in an acid aqueous solution containing urea to render the exhaust harmless by reducing the nitrogen oxides to nitrogen gas. Also generally known is a process of absorbing nitrogen oxides for reducing in an aqueous solution containing sulfites or acid sulfites of alkaline metals or alkaline earth metals or a mixture of two or more of these compounds. However, the prior art processes of eliminating nitrogen oxides have many drawbacks and present difficulties in practical application.

Namely, the dry process which uses a catalyst or activated carbon requires the dust of plant exhaust and catalyst-inhibiting material to be removed in advance and further the temperature, pressure and composition of the exhaust to be fully examined. The dry process is accompanied with so much complicated operation as to be of little practical use. Moreover, this dry process of adsorbing nitrogen oxides by activated carbon raises a problem with treatment of nitrogen oxides when desorbed from the activated carbon, and often fails to be a resolution.

On the other hand, the wet process, specifically the type which absorbs nitrogen oxides in an alkaline aqueous solution absorbs only a small amount of particularly NO of the nitrogen oxides. Since NO occupies a considerable percentage of general combustion exhaust, the wet process eliminates nitrogen oxides as a whole only at a low rate.

The process of absorbing nitrogen oxides in an acid aqueous solution of urea requires that the ratio of NO to NO.sub.2 in plant exhaust be smaller than 1. Since, however, it is extremely difficult to maintain the NO to NO.sub.2 ratio at said level, the process is of little practical use.

The process of conducting plant exhaust into an aqueous solution of sulfites or acid sulfites of alkaline metals or alkaline earth metals or a mixture of both types of sulfites and eliminating nitrogen oxides by reaction with the sulfite radical of the solution has the drawback that NO is removed at a low rate. Since NO.sub.2 accounts for about 10% of nitrogen oxides in combustion exhaust and NO about 90% thereof, this process fails to be put to industrial application, unless NO is converted into NO.sub.2, though the process has the advantage of converting nitrogen oxides into harmless nitrogen gas by reaction with the sulfite radial obtained by desulfurization of plant exhaust.

It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a method of removing nitrogen oxides from plant exhaust, particularly the NO component at a high rate.

Another object of the invention is to provide a method of simultaneously removing both nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides such as SO.sub.2 and SO.sub.3 from plant exhaust.

According to an aspect of the invention there is provided a method of eliminating a nitrogen oxide from an exhaust containing the same which comprises preparing an absorbent solution by adding divalent copper ions alone or a mixture of the divalent copper ions and divalent manganese ions to an acid aqueous solution containing at least one compound selected from the group consisting of sulfites and acid sulfites of ammonium, alkaline metals and alkaline earth metals; and introducing exhaust into the absorbent solution to react the nitrogen oxides of the exhaust with the sulfite radical of the solution, thereby reducing the nitrogen oxides into nitrogen gas.

This invention can be more fully understood from the following detailed description when taken in connection with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a line diagram showing the effect of absorbent solutions containing various catalytic additives on the elimination of NO;

FIG. 2 is a line diagram showing the relationship of NO concentration in an exhaust and the effect of various absorbent solutions on the removal of NO; and

FIG. 3 is a line diagram showing the effect of the amounts and combinations of catalytic additives contained in absorbent solutions on the elimination of NO.

The divalent copper ions used in the method of this invention have been proved to act as a catalyst for reducing nitrogen oxides of an exhaust to nitrogen gas by promoting reaction between the nitrogen oxides and sulfite radical of an absorbent solution. On the other hand, divalent manganese ions serve as a supplementary catalyst and have been found to stabilize the catalytic effect of added divalent copper ions and more efficiently eliminate nitrogen oxides.

This invention will be more fully understood from the laboratory and plant scale tests which follow.

Tests were made under the following conditions of the effect of ammonium salts of eliminating NO alone and a mixture of NO and NO.sub.2 purposely introduced into nitrogen gas using ammonium sulfite and acid ammonium sulfite, but without a catalyst.

The absorbent solution used in the tests consisted of an aqueous solution in which (NH.sub.4).sub.2 SO.sub.3 and NH.sub.4 HSO.sub.3 were dissolved in an equal amount at an overall concentration of 30%. The solution had its pH value controlled to 6.2 by introducing SO.sub.2 thereinto. Nitrogen gas containing 550 ppm of NO or a mixture of 500 ppm of NO and 500 ppm of NO.sub.2 was conducted at the rate of 250 ml/min. only at the first stage of an atomizer type absorption tester through 500 ml of the absorbent solution at 50.degree.C, thereby determining the capacity of said solution to absorb NO and NO.sub.2. In this case, no catalyst was used, as described above. The results are presented in Table 1 below which shows that NO.sub.2 of the test gas was absorbed at a high rate, whereas NO was removed at a low rate.

Reaction between nitrogen oxides of plant exhaust and the sulfite radical of the absorbent solution may be expressed by the following reaction formulas:

in the above-mentioned Laboratory Test 1, it was found that the reaction of the formula (2) did not proceed completely. The reason is supposed to be that NO had a low solubility or the reaction of the formula (2) was carried out at a slow rate. It was therefore confirmed that the efficient elimination of NO was important for the prominent removal of nitrogen oxides as a whole.

It may be considered advisable to increase the solubility of NO in an absorbent solution in order to promote the speed of the reaction of the above-mentioned formula (2). Since, however, it was difficult to elevate said solubility, various additives were added to the absorbent solution to accelerate the reaction of the formula (2), and tests were made to determine the catalytic effect of said additives.

In this test, there were provided the same kind of atomizer type absorption tester and absorbent solution as in Laboratory Test 1. However, absorption of nitrogen oxides was effected through the two stages of the tester. In Laboratory Test 2, the undermentioned nine kinds S.sub.1 to S.sub.9 of absorbent solution were used. S.sub.9 was the same kind of absorbent solution as used in Laboratory Test 1. S.sub.1 to S.sub.8 were the solutions to which the following catalytic materials were added respectively.

S.sub.1 = a solution prepared by adding 0.1 percent by weight of sodium naphthaquinone sulfonate to the absorbent solution used in Laboratory Test 1

S.sub.2 = a solution prepared by adding 0.1 percent by weight of hydroquinone to said absorbent solution

S.sub.3 = a solution prepared by adding 0.1 percent by weight of hydroxylamine to said absorbent solution

S.sub.4 = a solution prepared by adding Ni.sup.+.sup.+ in the form of sulfate to said absorbent solution in an amount of 0.1 percent by weight as Ni

S.sub.5 = a solution prepared by adding Cu.sup.+.sup.+ in the form of sulfate to said absorbent solution in an amount of 0.1 percent by weight as Cu

S.sub.6 = a solution prepared by adding Co.sup.+.sup.+ in the form of sulfate to said absorbent solution in an amount of 0.1 percent by weight as Co

S.sub.7 = a solution prepared by adding Mn.sup.+.sup.+ in the form of sulfate to said absorbent solution in an amount of 0.1 percent by weight as Mn

S.sub.8 = a solution prepared by adding Fe.sup.+.sup.+ in the form of sulfite to said absorbent solution in an amount of 0.1 percent by weight as Fe

Nitrogen gas containing 221 ppm of NO was caused to be absorbed in the above-mentioned nine absorbent solutions. The results of Laboratory Test 2 are presented in FIG. 1 in which the nine absorbent solutions are plotted on the abscissa and their capacity to remove NO on the ordinate. A standard deviation .sigma. was determined from the co-ordinate system according to stochastics, and deviations 3.sigma. in the percentage removal of NO were calculated from said standard deviation. As apparent from FIG. 1, S.sub.5 containing Cu.sup.+.sup.+ presented a NO-removing capacity of 55.3% far higher than the 3.sigma. line, a value substantially twice the NO-removing capacity (27.3%) of S.sub.9 which was free from any additive, providing that C.sup.+.sup.+ displayed a prominent catalytic effect. In FIG. 1, x = 31.1 indicates an average value.

Since Cu.sup.+.sup.+ was thus shown to have an excellent catalytic activity to remove NO, a search was made for a supplementary catalyst for Cu.sup.+.sup.+. As a result, Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was found to have such a capacity. Therefore, tests were made on the effect of varying amounts of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ added. Two test gases respectively containing 220 ppm and 550 ppm of NO were prepared by diluting NO with N.sub.2 in the same manner as in Laboratory Test 1. Tests were made on the NO-removing capacity of an absorbent solution free from any catalyst and another kind of absorbent solution to which Cu.sup.+.sup.+ alone or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was added as a catalyst, the results being set forth in Table 2 below. Throughout Table 2 and the later described FIG. 2, the character A.sub.1 designates N.sub.2 gas containing 220 ppm of NO and A.sub.2 indicates N.sub.2 gas containing 550 ppm of NO. B.sub.1 shows the same absorbent solution used in Laboratory Test 1, B.sub.2 an absorbent solution to which 0.1 percent by weight of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ was added to B.sub.1, B.sub.3 an absorbent solution to which 0.1 percent by weight of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and 0.05 percent by weight of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ were added to B.sub.1, and B.sub.4 an absorbent solution to which 0.1 percent by weight of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and 0.1 percent by weight of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ were added to B.sub.1.

The NO removal at each stage of Table 2 was computed as follows:

Analysis of variance was made of the values of Table 2, the results being presented in Table 3 below. In this Table 3, the character A denotes NO ppm, B four kinds (B.sub.1 to B.sub.4) of absorbent solution, e errors, and T a total of variations.

As seen from Table 3 and FIG. 2 prepared by presenting the test results of Table 3 in lines, addition of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ enabled a larger amount of NO to be removed than when said ion was not used and application of a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ attained a far more prominent removal of NO. Further, the elimination of NO was realized at a higher rate in the test gas A.sub.2 containing a large amount of NO than in the test gas A.sub.1.

Tests were made of the varying amounts of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ added to prove their catalytic activity in the elimination of NO. The tests were carried out by causing NO to be removed through the two stages of the absorption tester as in Laboratory Test 3, where Cu.sup.+.sup.+ alone was used in varying amounts and also where a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was added in such an amount that the addition of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was fixed at 0.01 percent by weight based on the absorbent solution, whereas the addition of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ was changed, the results being set forth in FIG. 3. As apparent from FIG. 3, addition of 0.03 percent by weight of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ alone attained a substantially maximum removal of NO. Namely, any further addition of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ kept the rate of NO removal almost unchanged, so that application of more than 0.1 percent by weight of said additive was found wasteful. In the case where a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was used, addition of more than 0.01 percent by weight of Cu.sup.+.sup.+, with the amount of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ fixed at 0.01 percent by weight, displayed a prominent capacity to eliminate NO.

It was confirmed that addition of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ alone or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ as a catalyst to an aqueous solution containing sulfites and acid sulfites of ammonium enabled the NO content of plant exhaust to be removed in the form reduced to N.sub.2.

Since the foregoing laboratory tests showed that the presence of the catalytic additives of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ in an aqueous solution containing sulfites and acid sulfites of ammonium effectively eliminated NO, tests were also made in the same manner as in Laboratory Test 2 for the NO-removing capacity of an aqueous solution containing sulfites and acid sulfites of alkaline metals or alkaline earth metals to which said Cu.sup.+.sup.+ or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ was added, using test gas containing 200 ppm of NO, the results being indicated in Table 4 below.

The rate of NO removal shown in Table 4 above was computed by the following method. Description is only given of the column of *1.

The same method of calculation is applicable to the after columns.

It was proved that when mixed with Cu.sup.+.sup.+ or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+, an aqueous solution containing the sulfites or acid sulfites of alkaline metals or alkaline earth metals displaced as prominent an effect of eliminating NO as the same aqueous solution of ammonium. The same results were obtained with an aqueous solution of sulfites or acid sulfites of potassium, when the solution contained Cu.sup.+.sup.+ or a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+.

The reason why the pH value of the absorbent solutions was decreased as described in Notes 2 and 3 to Table 4 above is that it was necessary to convert CaSO.sub.3 and MgSO.sub.3 to a form capable of reacting with nitrogen oxides, and that unless the pH value remained on the acid side, Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ would be precipitated.

Nitrogen oxides contained in exhaust from the sintering plant of iron works were removed by the method of this invention. In this test an atomizer type absorber was used. Exhaust from the sintering plant was conducted through an electric Cottrell dust collector to be stripped of dust. Said exhaust was passed at the rate of 200 ml/min. through 500 ml of the nitrogen oxide-absorbing solution of this invention maintained at 50.degree.C to determine the absorbing capacity of said solution.

Exhaust from the sintering plant contained 7.0% by volume of CO.sub.2, 11.0% by volume of O.sub.2, 0.5% by volume of CO, 81.5% by volume of N.sub.2, 180 ppm of nitrogen oxides, 450 ppm of SO.sub.2 and some amounts of water and dust.

The nitrogen oxide-absorbing solution used in the above-mentioned test was prepared by first providing an aqueous solution in which (NH.sub.4).sub.2 SO.sub.3 and NH.sub.4 HSO.sub.3 were dissolved in a total amount of 30 percent by weight, introducing SO.sub.2 gas into said aqueous solution to control its pH to 6.2 and further adding catalysts Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ respectively in an amount of 0.01 percent by weight based on said solution. There was also used another type of nitrogen oxide-absorbing solution which did not contain said catalysts. The results of the plant scale tests are presented in Table 5 below.

Table 5 above clearly shows the prominent effect of divalent copper ions and divalent manganese ions added to the absorbent solution.

For the object of this invention, the catalyst Cu.sup.+.sup.+ should preferably be added to an acid aqueous solution containing at least one compound selected from the group consisting of sulfites and acid sulfites of ammonium, alkaline metals and alkaline earth metals in an amount of 0.03 to 0.1 percent by weight as metallic copper. On the other hand a mixture of Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ used as a catalyst should preferably be added to the above-mentioned aqueous solution in such an amount that where addition of Mn.sup.+.sup.+ is fixed at 0.01 percent by weight as metallic manganese, Cu.sup.+.sup.+ accounts for 0.01 to 0.1 percent by weight.

Exhaust from chemical plants generally contains as large an amount of NO as more than 90%. Where nitrogen oxides are removed by being absorbed in the prior art absorbent solution containing sulfites or acid sulfites of alkaline metals or alkaline earth metals or a mixture of these compounds, NO is eliminated only at a low rate as previously described. For the more efficient removal of nitrogen oxides, therefore, the prior art process requires NO to be converted into NO.sub.2 readily absorbable in the absorbent solution and thereafter said NO.sub.2 to be removed according to the aforesaid reaction formula (1). In contrast, the method of this invention attains a high rate of removing NO, and can effect said removal directly according to the previously mentioned reaction formula (2). As apparent from comparison between both reaction formulas (1) and (2), consumption of SO.sub.3 .sup.-.sup.- in the formula (2) is half that of the formula (1). Therefore, the method of this invention reduces requirements of SO.sub.3 .sup.-.sup.- more effectively than has been possible in the past. Further, the method of the invention enables plant exhaust containing both nitrogen oxides and SOy (y is an integer of 2 or 3) to be treated in a single apparatus, offering the economic advantage of utilizing the sulfite radical recovered by desulfurization of an exhaust in reaction with nitrogen oxides.

Where nitrogen oxides and SOy are to be removed simultaneously from an exhaust by a single tower system using the absorbent solution of this invention containing sulfites or acid sulfites of ammonium, then it is advised to control the pH of the absorbent solution to 5.8 to 6.5. Where said simultaneous elimination of nitrogen oxides and SOy is to be effected by a two-tower system, then the absorbent solution of the first tower which is initially brought into contact with plant exhaust should preferably have a pH value of less than 6 and the absorbent of the second tower a pH value of less than 6.5.

Where the above-mentioned simultaneous elimination of nitrogen oxides and SOy from an exhaust using the absorbent solution of this invention containing sulfites or acid sulfites of sodium, potassium, calcium or magnesium is to be effected, then Cu.sup.+.sup.+ and Mn.sup.+.sup.+ used as catalysts are sometimes undesirably changed into insoluble hydroxides in the pH range adapted for removal of SO.sub.2. Where, however, a two-tower system is applied to avoid such drawback, thereby reducing the pH of the absorbent solution of the first tower to a level of less than 6 by the SO.sub.2 content of an exhaust, then salts of copper and/or manganese added as catalysts can be rendered soluble, and moreover CaSO.sub.3 and MgSO.sub.3 can be respectively converted into soluble Ca(HSO.sub.3).sub.2 and Mg(HSO.sub.3).sub.2 capable of reacting with nitrogen oxides.