Low temperature deNOx technologies in power plants

Increasing the energy produced in electrical power plants by firing CO2-neutral biomass/waste or biomass/waste in combination with fossil fuels is desired. Thus the EU reached agreement in 2007 that 20% of the energy should be produced from renewable fuels by 2020 to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2. This challenges, however, the downstream catalytic cleaning of the flue gas for nitrogen oxides (NOx), since the catalyst is severely deactivated by the aggressive flue gas dust, originating from the high content of potassium salts found in the biomass compared to fossil fuels. Thus we expect to develop flue gas cleaning catalysts effective at lower temperatures, i.e. in the range 50-200 °C, making them feasible for dust-free end-of-pipe installment in power and waste incineration plants. We also intend to use environmental friendly catalyst components like iron and manganese instead of the rather poisonous vanadium utilized today. In addition, an emerging alternative technology of selective gas absorption by ionic liquids in wet scrubber/solid absorber process design will be attempted regarding absorption and catalytic conversion of NO in the flue gas to nitric acid of commercial grade - a waste to value process.