An experimental and modelling study of the Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR) of NOx and NH3 in a cyclone reactor

The Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction process was investigated through experiments and modelling in a bench scale cyclone reactor. Outlet and internal profiles of NO and NH3 concentrations were measured at varying operating conditions. Cyclone inlet temperatures between 866 and 1023 °C were used, while the inlet NO concentration was kept at ~500 ppm. Gaseous ammonia was injected in the cyclone inlet, with nitrogen carrier gas. 60–69% NO reduction was achieved at inlet temperatures of 975–982 °C, and stoichiometric ratio NH3/NO β ≈ 1.6 , with no ammonia slip. The main reaction zone was the inlet and upper cyclone chamber. The experiments was modelled using simple and detailed kinetics combined with simple reactor models and a compartment model suggested in this work. The qualitative trends of NO reduction and ammonia slip were predicted by the models. However, the ammonia slip was significantly over-predicted in most cases. The outlet concentrations were insensitive to choice of reactor model, while sensitive to temperature and kinetics. The compartment model quantitatively reproduced the cyclones NO concentration profiles, through its simplified representation of the cyclone flow and temperature gradients, while the NH3 profiles were only qualitatively predicted. The choice of bypass fractions showed a large influence on the ammonia profiles.