SO2 and NOx removal by microwave and electron beam processing.

This work presents a method and a semi-pilot scale installation (SPSI) for the simultaneous SO2 and NOx removal by separate and combined microwave (MW) and electron beam (EB) irradiation. The SPSI consists mainly of the following units: a gaseous mixture preparation system (GMPS), a microwave source (MS) of 2.45 GHz and 4.2 kW maximum output power an electron beam source (EBS) of 1.8 MeVand 10.8 kW maximum output power and a multimode rectangular cavity (MRC), used as reaction chamber in which are injected both MW and EB fields. The most important parameters for high SO2 removal efficiencies obtained by MW technology are water and ammonia concentration, the gaseous mixture temperature during irradiation process and MW power level. The most important parameter for high NOx removal efficiency obtained by MW technology is MW power level. The removal efficiencies obtained by MW processing were up to 95% for SO2 and up to 55% for NOx. The additional use of EB irradiation to MW exposure strongly increases NOx removal efficiencies in comparison with MW exposure only, up to 95%, simultaneously providing very high values for the SO2 removal efficiency, near 100%.