Abstract
A plasma-assisted ammonia injection technique was previously demonstrated as having the potential to remove NOx from combustion flue gases at SCR-comparable levels without the use of catalysts. However, these demonstrations did not prove the advantage of plasma assistance because they did not explicitly account for enhanced radical production by bulk thermal heating. An experiment using hot ammonia injection was performed to separate this thermal effect from the effect of radical production via interaction with a plasma. Under excess air conditions, results show that a thermal effect does provide improved NOx reduction, but not to the level achieved with the use of a plasma source. However, heating the injection gases provides only a minor improvement in NOx reduction at NH3/NOx ratios and temperatures typical of commercial cold SNCR applications. The plasma effect in ammonia radical injection was also found to be significant, accounting for an additional 15% to 35% of absolute NOx reduction beyond any thermal benefit at typical excess air conditions. The ammonia radical injection technique continues to show promise as an effective NOx reduction alternative.