Ammonia Monitoring for denox process - Philippe Minghetti and Rachid Mouflih

The aim of this article is to look at the problems and some of the solutions which have been developed for monitoring ammonia (NH3) in DeNOx process.

Introduction

The European directive 2001/81/EC of 23rd October 2001 has for objective to limit the emission of pollutants and ozone precursors in order to improve the protection of the environment and human health. National emission ceilings, taking the years 2010 and 2020 as benchmarks, has been fixed for every European countries concerning the nitrogen oxides (NOx), ammonia (NH3), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). The NOx, coming for more than 70% from combustion in vehicles and power plants, are responsible for a very significant increase of the respiratory diseases as bronchitis and asthma, especially for children and old people. A recent three-country European study [1] found that air pollution causes 6% of all deaths, and thus kills many more people than traffic accidents. The nitrogen oxides NO and NO2 directly regulate O3 production rates and indirectly influence aerosol abundances in the urban, rural, and remote troposphere. Emissions of NOx are thus responsible for the major components of photochemical smog.