EP2052249A1

EP2052249A1 - Quality control of selective catalytic reduction reagents

Info

Publication number: EP2052249A1
Application number: EP07808519A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Mathijs Van Genderen; Marcus Gerardus Van Aken
Original assignee: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO
Current assignee: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek TNO
Priority date: 2006-08-02
Filing date: 2007-08-02
Publication date: 2009-04-29
Also published as: KR20090074727A; EP1884772A1; CN101523204A; JP2009545696A; WO2008016299A1

Abstract

The invention is directed to a method for monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents, in particular for monitoring the quality of NH3 producing reagents, such as urea solutions. The method of the present invention allows for determining the equivalent NH3 concentration of any selective catalytic reduction reagent that forms NH3 upon heating. Subsequently, the amount of injected reagent can be adjusted to the measured equivalent NH3 concentration in order to optimise the NOx reduction.

Description

Title: Quality control of selective catalytic reduction reagents

The invention is directed to a method for monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents, in particular for monitoring the quality of NH3 producing reagents, such as urea solutions.

In order to make fuel powered engines, particularly diesel engines, less harmful for the environment, new technologies are being developed for reducing harmful emissions. Especially diesel engines are responsible for high amounts of NO_x. Most technologies for reducing these emissions are based on after treatment of the exhaust gas.

A promising technique for reducing NOx emissions is the so-called Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technique. The fundamental approach to this technology is to inject ammonia or urea into the exhaust gas to convert NOx into nitrogen and water. This conversion is often achieved with the aid of a catalyst. Urea is selected over ammonia since ammonia is poisonous and difficult to handle. Urea can be decomposed into NH3 according to the following reactions.

(NH₂)₂CO > NH₃ + HNCO

HNCO + H₂O > NH₃ +CO₂

Subsequently NO_* from the exhaust gas is reduced by NH3 so that N2 and H2O are formed which are harmless for the environment. This reduction of NOx can take place in the presence of oxygen. The following reactions are assumed to take place. (1) 6NO + 4NH₃ → 5N₂ + 6H₂O

(2) 4NO + 4NH₃ + O₂ → 4N₂ + 6H₂O

(3) 6NO₂ + 8NH₃ → 7N₂ + 12H₂O

(4) 2NO₂ + 4NH₃ + O₂ → 3N₂ + 6H₂O

(5) NO + NO₂ + 2NH₃ → 2N₂ + 3H₂O

Reaction (2) being the dominant reaction under normal conditions, whereas reaction (5) is the more preferred reaction. The extra NO₂ that is required for reaction (5) may be obtained by using a diesel oxidation catalyst.

From these reaction equations it follows that the amount of injected urea should be well controlled. If the amount of injected urea is too low, then not all NOx is converted and as a result the exhaust gas will comprise NOx. On the other hand, an excess of injected urea leads to the formation and emission of dangerous NH₃.

Attempts have been made in the prior art to control the amount of injected selective catalytic reduction reagent. For instance, US-A-5 968 464, US-A-6 679 051, US-A-2003/0 033 799, US-A-5 540 047 and Moos et al. (Sensors and Actuators B 2002, 83, 181-189) describe SCR systems, in which a selective catalytic reduction reagent is injected in the exhaust flow downstream the catalyst and the amount of NH₃ in the exhaust gas flow upstream of the catalyst is measured in order to perform closed-loop control on the amount of NH₃ required to convert a predetermined amount of NO_x without having a large NH₃ slip.

A standard selective catalytic reduction reagent that is applied in SCR systems is AdBlue^®, which is a 32.5 wt.% aqueous urea solution. However, other selective catalytic reduction reagents with different urea concentrations are also known. Furthermore, selective catalytic reduction reagents have been developed which have a freezing point that is lower than the freezing point of AdBlue^® which is -11 ⁰C. For example, Denoxium™ involves a mixture of urea with ammonium formate, thereby lowering the freezing point to -30 ⁰C. Since all these different selective catalytic reduction reagents have a different equivalent NH3 concentration, they require a different dosing in the exhaust in order to have optimal catalytic NO_* reduction.

The present inventors further believe that they are the first to have realised that although injecting reducing agents into the exhaust gas stream may have beneficial effects for the environment, which may be a good ground to enforce the use of systems employing injection of reducing agents by legislation, in practice such systems can be tampered with or can even be made completely dysfunctional. This type of abuse is not entirely hypothetical, because the user of the engine generally will have to pay for keeping the stock of reducing agents on a proper level without seeing any direct benefit for it. Abuse may, for instance, involve diluting the urea solution or using water instead of urea solution, by which the concentration of urea will lower considerably or even become zero. This will not be noted easily by visual inspection. If SCR is to be enforced successfully, it is important to have a reliable system of monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents.

WO-A-00/75643 describes a method for adjusting the amount of injected urea in order to have optimal NOx conversion. The method is based on a fluorescently tagged selective catalytic reduction reagent by which the equivalent concentration of NH3 can be determined. Disadvantages of this method include that the fluorescent tracer has to be applied to the selective catalytic reduction reagent in a pre-treatment and that the mentioned organic fluorescent tracers are sensitive to high temperatures.

Object of the present invention is to provide a method for monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents, which at least partly overcomes the above-mentioned shortcomings and disadvantages.

In accordance with the present invention, this objective is met by a monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents. Accordingly, in a first aspect the present invention is directed to a method for monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents comprising determining the equivalent NH3 concentration of the selective catalytic reduction reagent by carrying out the subsequent steps of:

- injecting a known amount of the selective catalytic reduction reagent into a chamber;

- converting the amount of reagent in the chamber to form NH3; and

- measuring the amount of NH3 with an NH3 sensor.

The method of the present invention allows for determining the equivalent NH3 concentration of any selective catalytic reduction reagent that forms NH3 by pyrolysis and/or hydrolysis. Subsequently, the amount of injected reagent can be adjusted to the measured equivalent NH3 concentration in order to optimise the NO_* reduction.

Advantageously, the selective catalytic reduction reagent does not need to be subjected to a pre-treatment, but can be applied directly in the tank.

Preferably the selective catalytic reduction reagent comprises urea.

According to the invention a small amount of the selective catalytic reduction reagent is injected into a small process chamber. Preferably said process chamber is essentially free of NO_x, because the presence of NO_x can interfere with the determination of the equivalent NH3 concentration of the selective catalytic reduction reagent. It is advantageous when the amount of reagent is fixed so that during each batch the same amount of reagent is converted in the chamber. This is for instance possible by pressing a fixed volume from a container that is filled with selective catalytic reduction reagent. The volume can be directly pressed into the process chamber.

Figures 1-3 schematically depict suitable configurations for injecting fixed amounts of reagents into the process chamber. In the embodiment of Figure 1 this is obtained by using a piston moving through a cylinder filled with reagent. Injecting a fixed amount of selective catalytic reduction reagent into the process chamber can also be obtained by providing a circular body with a notch in a closed shell connecting a container filled with selective catalytic reduction reagent with the process chamber. This embodiment is depicted in Figures 2 and 3. When the notch is turned to the container, the notch is filled with a fixed amount of reagent. If subsequently the circular body is turned so that the notch faces the process chamber, the fixed amount of selective catalytic reduction agent is released into the process chamber.

Of course, also other systems can be designed in order to inject a fix volume of selective catalytic reduction reagent into the process chamber. The amount of reagent that is injected into the chamber can vary and depends on factors such as the size of the process chamber, the detection range of the NH3 sensor, the type of vehicle (e.g. heavy duty (trucks), medium duty (vans) or light duty (cars)), etc. The invention can also be applied in non-road engines, e.g. bulldozers, shovels, generators and the like. For light duty engines, the size of the chamber is preferably smaller than 1 cm³, typically from 0.01 to 0.5 cm³. For heavy duty engines, the size may be as large as 1 dm³ for instance from 0.1 to 0.5 dm³.

The lower limit of the injected amount is also determined by the sensitivity of the NH3 sensor.

Table 1 lists, by way of example, different process chamber volumes and typical detection limits for the NH3 sensor. These dimensions and concentrations can be used in accordance with the present invention. The required volume of reagent solution (i.e. aqueous 32.5 wt.% AdBlue solution) and the corresponding droplet diameter is indicated as well.

Table 1

In the process chamber, the selective catalytic reduction reagent is converted into NH3 and CO2, preferably essentially completely. At a temperature of below 360 ⁰C, HNCO can be formed as a by-product when urea is decomposed. Furthermore, if urea is slowly heated unwanted polymerisation may occur. Therefore, if no catalyst to assist urea decomposition is used, it is preferred that the injected amount of selective catalytic reduction reagent is brought to a temperature of more than 360 ⁰C as quickly as possible. This can for example be achieved by flash evaporating the injected volume into the chamber at a temperature of above 360 ⁰C. For example, the fixed volume can be brought to a pressure which is higher than the pressure in the chamber before it is injected. At temperatures above 360 ⁰C, HNCO that may have been formed is also converted to NH3 and CO2. Preferably the temperature in the process chamber is more than 400 °C in the absence of a catalyst.

In order to achieve a complete conversion of HNCO at low temperatures, in particular below 360 ⁰C, a hydrolysis catalyst may be used, such as zeolite or vanadium.

To improve the conversion of the SCR reagent, a solid catalyst can be applied in the reaction chamber, such as precious metal based catalysts and/or zeolite or alumina based catalysts, or combinations thereof.

The conversions in the process chamber can be carried out at pressures that are just above atmospheric pressure, e.g. from about 1 to 1.1 atm. Any type of NH3 sensor may be used that is compatible with the size of the chamber. It is preferred that the sensor is selective for NH3, because otherwise errors in the equivalent NH3 concentrations may occur. The NH3 sensor may for example be a solid-state NH3 sensor, a semiconductor NH3 sensor, an electrochemical NH3 sensor, a field effect NH3 sensor, a NO_* sensor which is used for detecting NH3 by cross selectivity, or any other known selective NH3 sensor in the art. If the sensor is heat sensitive (for example certain solid state, semiconductor and electrochemical sensors), the formed gasses can be moved into a separate chamber where they can cool down in order to be measured.

After the fixed amount of selective catalytic reduction reagent has been converted in the process chamber and the NH3 concentration has been assessed, the chamber can be cleaned so that no residue influences the following batch. This can be done by flushing a gas, such as air or exhaust gas, through the process chamber at an elevated pressure. The flushing gas may be present in a second large chamber where the gas is brought under pressure by heating. Subsequently, a valve in the process chamber is opened so that gasses can leave the process chamber. Then the large chamber and the process chamber are connected so that the flushing gas under pressure can enter the process chamber and clean it.

The effluent from the process chamber may be fed into the exhaust gas stream, where the NH3 can react with NO_x in the conventional manner.

The method of the invention can be carried out at any point in time, e.g. directly after starting the engine, or a multitude of times while the engine is running. Typical sampling frequencies may vary widely, e.g. a single comparison check can be made by measuring once before and once after starting the engine. Alternatively, the frequency may be several samples per hour or minute. If actual control of the flow of reduction agents is desired, typical frequencies may be from 0.1 to 10 s ¹, e.g. 1 S"¹. In another embodiment, the measured equivalent NH3 concentration of the selective catalytic reduction reagent is used to adjust the amount of reagent that is injected into the exhaust for reducing the NOx emission. This can be done by means of a standard algorithm in which the measured equivalent NH3 concentration is compared to the equivalent NH3 concentration of a standard urea solution, such as AdBlue^®, and the injection amount is calculated accordingly. Then, the calculated injection amount can be compared with the actual injection amount and the injection can be adjusted so as to optimise the amount of selective catalytic reduction reagent to the reduction of NOx. This can for instance be achieved by the method described in WO-A-02/33232.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring the quality of selective catalytic reduction agents used in NOx reduction of exhaust gases, comprising determining the equivalent NH3 concentration of the selective catalytic reduction reagent by carrying out the subsequent steps of: - injecting a known amount of the selective catalytic reduction reagent into a chamber;

- converting the amount of reagent in the chamber to form NH3; and

- measuring the amount of NH3 with an NH3 sensor.

2. A method according to claim 1, in which said chamber is essentially free from NO_x.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, followed by a step wherein the chamber is purged.

4. A method according to any of the preceding claims, further comprising a step wherein the equivalent NH3 concentration of the selective catalytic reduction agent is used to adjust the amount of the selective catalytic reduction agent which is injected into an exhaust gas stream.

5. A method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the injection of the selective reduction reagent into the chamber is a flash evaporation.

6. A method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the catalytic reduction reagent comprises urea.

7. A method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the step of measuring the amount of NH3 formed is carried out directly after starting an engine, or a multitude of times while the engine is running.

8. A method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the NH3 formed in said chamber is injected in said exhaust gas.

9. A method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the temperature of the chamber is more than 360 °C, preferably more than 400 °C.