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Amminex A/S
Gladsaxevej 363
DK-2860 Søborg
+45 51 16 98 88
info@amminex.com
NOx reduction

Trucks and an increasing number of passenger cars are diesel powered - mainly due to better fuel economy. A diesel vehicle uses 30% less fuel than a gasoline vehicle. This is a benifit to both consumer and environment, in terms of savings in money and CO2 -emmision.


But the exhaust from diesel engines contains several unwanted components; Particulate matter (PM), volatile hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monooxide (CO) and nitrous oxides (NOx).

Amminex provides a novel technology for reducing NOx from the exhaust of diesel vehicles. The core of the technology is the ability to safely store large amounts of ammonia in a proprietary formulation of solid metal ammine complexes, - AdAmmine.

By controlled release and dosing of ammonia into the exhaust line the amount of NOx can be drastically reduced. The most important characteristics of the Amminex system can be summarized as follows.
  • Enables direct ammonia dosing to the exhaust line.
  • Works at all temperatures, does not freeze like AdBlue/DEF.
  • Easy to control dosing.
  • Urea hydrolysis in the exhaust line is completely omitted.
  • With pure ammonia gas dosing, NOx conversion during urban driving is enhanced compared to AdBlue/DEF. With AdBlue/DEF, urea conversion rate at low exhaust temperature is the bottle-neck.
  • Mechanically simple.
  • Customer friendly: No refilling by consumer needed.
  • Very long shelf life.

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Why is it necessary to remove NOx?

NOx is a toxic air pollutant participating in formation of smog, ozone layer depletion and acid rain. Thus an effective reduction of NOx from the exhaust gas of automotives will be a great benefit to the environment, both locally and globally. To encourage car and truck manufacturers to find and implement solutions for NOx reduction, a number of laws have been passed, both in the EU and in the US, setting limits for NOx levels in exhaust.

The chemistry of NOx

The obvious way to remove NOx is to add a precisely measured amount of ammonia and pass the mixture over a catalyst. The reaction that occurs is then the following:

 

 

2NH3 + NO + NO2   →   2N2  + 3H2O

 

This is an effective effective reduction process. The only real problem is that it requires onboard storage of ammonia. This is the problem that the Amminex technology solves.

An overview of the concept is shown below:

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 Urea

At present the mostly used NOx reductant is the urea-based solution. In this technique an aqueous solution of urea, marketed as AdBlue or DEF, is sprayed into the exhaust line, where it under ideal conditions evaporated and decmposes completely to ammonia and CO2.


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There are a number of technical issues with this technology concerning freezing, dosing, polymerization, enforcement and dosing urea when the engine is idle. Not to mention the limited shelf-life of AdBlue.

In terms of capacity the Amminex product, AdAmmine, holds approx. 2.5 times the amount of ammonia compared to AdBlue.


Facts

Ammonia gas is lighter than air.