플라즈마트론을 이용한 디젤 엔진 배기가스의 NOx 저감 기술 연구

Abstract

The diesel vehicle is relatively superior to gasoline vehicle on the fuel consumption, durability and combustion efficiency. However, exhaust emissions from diesel vehicles are known to be harmful to human health and environment. An experimental study of the diesel fuel reformation by a plasmatron and diesel engine exhaust cleaning by means of plasma chemical pretreatment of fuel is described. Plasma chemical reformation of fuel was carried by a DC arc plasmatron that was fabricated to increase an ability of the gas activation. Some portion of the fuel was activated in an arc discharge and turned into the hydrogen-rich synthesis gas. The yield of reformation for the diesel fuel showed 80 % ∼ 100 % when the small quantities of fuel (flow rate up to about 6 cc/min) were reformed. The regulation for an emission from the diesel vehicle is getting more stringent, the research in the field of the in-cylinder processing technologies (pretreatment) becomes more important issue as well as the catalyst after-treatment. The used high durability plasmatron has the characteristics of low contamination level, low anode erosion rate, low plasma temperature, and effective activation of the process gas. The developed fuel reformation system with the plasmatron was connected to the air feeding inlet sleeve of the diesel engine Kookje 3T90LT-AC (Korea) in order to study the reduction of NOx content in the engine's emission. Tubular reformation chamber was connected to the engine through the heat exchanger DOVER B10Hx20/1P-SC-S. Its cooling jacket was connected in series with the cooling system of the plasmatron. At the exit of this device gas temperature did not exceed ∼40 ℃ at plasmatron power up to 1.5 kW which seemed quite acceptable. Gas composition was studied here using RBR-Ecom KD gas analyzer. The design of the DC arc plasmatron applied for the plasma chemical fuel reformation was improved boosting the degree of fuel-air mixture activation that provided the completeness of the partial fuel oxidation reaction up to 100%. Nitrogen was found to be the most effective gas for the synthesis gas production by a plasmatron. The preliminary experiments of introducing the reformation products into a diesel engine resulted in ∼25% NOx cut in the exhaust gas flow. A simulation experiment with the pure hydrogen addition to the inlet of a diesel engine showed that both components of the synthesis gas H2 and CO fed into the engine play significant role in cutting NOx content in the engine's emission. The selective catalytic reduction (SCR) with propylene and decane as reductants in the presence of excess air over (Fe, Co-Pt)/ZSM-5 catalyst was conducted to remove NOx from Diesel exhaust gases. The SO₂ effect and deactivation test over above catalyst were also executed. ZSM-5 supported Co, Pt, Fe mixed oxide catalyst showed about 80% of conversion in the presence of NO. However, the activity was decreased when the catalyst was washcoated onto the ceramic monolith. We found that the deNOx activity over the catalyst was strongly depended on the amount of reductant. Therefore, the amount reductant and how to feed the reductant into the system should be considered as important factors to remove NOx. In order to develop the high removal NOx activity at low temperature and maintain the stable activity at the real exhaust gases condition, metallosilicate and Pt/ZSM-5 catalysts have been used. In case of metallosilicate catalyst, the deNOx activity was low at the oxidation atmospheric condition. When the Pt was ion-exchanged with ZSM-5, the H-form of ZSM-5 catalyst showed high deNOx activity. The effect of reductant type on deNOx activity exhibited that the olefin system provided more higher activity than octane system. The methane conversion observed in the presence of NO and excess O2 over alumina supported Pt catalyst. In order to improve the activity and durability, the Co metal ion was added. The result showed that the Co-Pt catalyst gave high activity, and the light off and complete oxidation occurred.