meta data for this page
This is an old revision of the document!
2.B.2 - Nitric Acid Production
Short description
Method | AD | EF | Key Category |
---|---|---|---|
T2 | PS | D | L/T: NOx |
During the production of nitric acid, nitrogen oxide occurs in a secondary reaction. In Germany, there are currently seven nitric acid production plants. HNO3, production occurs in two process stages:
- Oxidation of NH3 to NO and
- Conversion of NO to NO2 and absorption in H2O.
Details of the process are outlined below:
Catalytic oxidation of ammonia
A mixture of ammonia and air at a ratio of 1:9 is oxidised, in the presence of a platinum catalyst alloyed with rhodium and/or palladium, at a temperature of between 800 and 950 °C. The related reaction, according to the Oswald process, is as follows:
4 NH3 + 5 O2 –> 4 NO + 6 H2O
Simultaneously, nitrogen, nitrous oxide and water are formed by the following undesired secondary reactions:
4 NH3 + 3 O2 –> 2 N2 + 6 H2O 4 NH3 + 4 O2 –> 2 N2O + 6 H2O
All three oxidation reactions are exothermic. Heat may be recovered to produce steam for the process and for export to other plants and/or to preheat the residual gas. The reaction water is condensed in a cooling condenser, during the cooling of the reaction gases, and is then conveyed into the absorption column.
Methodology
Activity data
As this source category is a key category for N,,2,,O, plant specific activity data are applied here according to the IPCC guidelines.
These data are made available basically via a co-operation agreement with the nitric acid producers and the IVA (Industrieverband Agrar). As the data provided by the producers has to be treated as confidential, it is anonymised by the IVA before submitting it to the UBA. Here, one producer is delivering its data directly to the UBA. After checking these specific data, they are merged with the IVA.
According to the IVA, catalytic reduction is used as a reduction method in some of the plants.
Emission factor
For NO,,x,, the default emission factor from the EEA Emission Inventory Guidebook of 10 kg/t NH,,3,,1) is used.
Recalculations
With activity data and emission factors remaining unrevised, no recalculations have been carried out compared to last year's submission.
Planned improvements
Germany is in contact with the IVA with the aim to get a Country-specific EF for the NOx emissions. It is expected that the Country-specific EF will be lower than the Default EF.
For pollutant-specific information on recalculated emission estimates for Base Year and 2018, please see the pollutant specific recalculation tables following chapter 8.1 - Recalculations.