Products and solutions Feb 13, 2007 10:00 AM
Uhde wins new contracts for EnviNOx® tail gas treatment units for the abatement of greenhouse gases
Uhde has been commissioned by the Hungarian fertiliser company Nitrogénmüvek Zrt. to engineer and supply a tail gas treatment unit based on the EnviNOx® technology. The EnviNOx® unit will be installed in a new nitric acid plant in Petfürdö, around 80 kilometres south-west of Budapest, and is scheduled to come on-stream in May 2007.
Uhde's EnviNOx® process uses a special catalyst to convert the pollutant nitrogen oxides, i.e. nitrous oxide (N2O) and NOx, in the tail gas streams of nitric acid plants into the naturally occurring substances nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour. In total, future annual emissions from the Hungarian plant will be reduced by approximately 3,200 tonnes of nitrous oxide. The EnviNOx® process has recently been acknowledged as best available technique (BAT) for official approval procedures in the European Union.
A second contract for an EnviNOx® tail gas treatment unit has also been awarded by ENAEX S.A. of Santiago, Chile. Here too the unit will be installed in a nitric acid plant, thus reducing annual emissions of nitrous oxide by 3,000 tonnes. The unit is due to come on-stream in Mejillones, some 1,400 kilometres north of the capital Santiago, in late 2007. Both contracts comprise the licence, basic engineering, supply of key equipment and supervision of the commissioning of the units.
As the global warming potential of nitrous oxide is estimated to be some 310 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) , the total nitrous oxide emissions abated by these new EnviNOx® units will correspond to almost two million tonnes of CO2. This is approximately equal to the annual amount of carbon dioxide emitted by around 500,000 cars with an average mileage of 20,000 kilometres a year or a 250MW lignite power plant.