Improve the Efficiency of NH3 Capture for N Recycle by Gas Discharge Plasma
摘要
NH3 emission from agricultural and livestock activities causes serious nitrogen waste and air pollution. Air plasma provides a green approach for NH3 capture and nitrogen recycling via an indirect pathway: post-plasma products react with NH3 to form recyclable nitrogen fertilizer NH4NO3. However, the practical application of this technology is currently limited by two critical bottlenecks: the unclear mechanism of humidity influence and the difficulty of scaling up intermittent operation. In this work, we first revealed the core mechanism by which relative humidity (RH) regulates the discharging energy distribution. Increasing RH from 5% to 100% promoted energy consumption for H2O excitation rather than NOx generation, leading to a 56% decrease in NH4NO3 yield. The optimal operating condition in single-channel mode was determined as 5% RH and 5 sccm NH3 flow rate, achieving a 7.5-fold higher yield with NH3 capture rate (CR) over 90%. On this basis, a continuous dual-channel air plasma system was designed to realize simultaneous mixing of post-plasma products and NH3. Results showed that CR and NOx utilization rate (UR) exhibited opposite trends with gas flow rates. There is always a balance point to make CR and UR both reach a higher level. Therefore, a SCORE index was then proposed to evaluate and optimize the efficiency under different requirements.