Denitrification mechanism of NaOH in the presence of carbon.

We tested a mixture of NaOH and carbon and found it to react rapidly with NO gas, thus demonstrating a promising new method of flue gas denitrification (FGD). We determined the reaction products: gas phases were analyzed by GC-MS and NOx meter, and solid residues were analyzed by X-ray diffusion (XRD) and chemical analysis. The reaction process was clearly divided into two stages. In the first stage, the reaction proceeded extremely rapidly, with NO almost completely removed. The mechanism describing this stage consists of a series of reactions of NaOH and NO in the presence of carbon. The main conversion of sodium in this stage is proposed to be: NaOH-->NaNO3 (and NaNO2)-->Na2O2-Na2CO3. The pyrolysis of NaNO3 was examined and carbon was found to have the ability to reduce NOx emission during this process. In the second stage, NO reduction proceeds slowly and stabilizes at a constant value. The mechanism behind this stage is considered to be the reaction of carbon with NO in the presence of Na2-CO3 as catalyst. Quantitative study of the reaction system demonstrated that the total amount of denitrified NO is proportional to the amount of carbon and that the denitrified NO in the first stage is proportional to the amount of NaOH.