Ammonia ?

[GasSavers_Scott]

I have heard of Mercedes Blue Tech amonia injected diesels. On a recent Truck U show on Speed Vision, they claimed Dodge's new amonia injected diesel produced 98% water vapor, with only 2% Co. Is this true?

Can amonia work on gas engines? Could this whole green house gas thing be cured by amonia?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Actually, its mostly urea...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

[Sludgy]

Ammonia is used downstream of the engine to reduce NOx emissions. By itself, ammonia has no effect on CO in the exhaust, although the de-NOx catalyst may be oxidizing CO at the same time.

Urea (NH2CONH2), by the way, is simply two ammonia (NH3) molecules joined to a carbon dioxide (CO2) molecule, less a water (H2O) molecule. Add water, and you get the ammonia back.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I think its a cool form of recycling though... Use a bio-waste product like urea, and reduce diesel emissions with it.

[theholycow]

The wiki doesn't mention reclaiming it from the waste stream. Often with stuff like this I find out that they ignore the waste stream and produce it some other way.

[trollbait]

I don't think much urea ends up as waste. It's a useful fertilizer and building block for other chemicals.

That's aside from the obvious waste stream. Which would likely have public health concerns. They are likely invalid, but would be bad for PR. We can process sewage back into drinking water, but public perception would be the biggest hurdle to doing so.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I guess not. but I'm sure some trucker somewhere is topping off his DEF tank with some homemade urea.

[theholycow]

Meh, let nature process the sewage back into drinking water, use sewage-derived clean water for other non-human-consumption purposes if it was that important...but it's not. If it's clean enough to drink then it's clean enough to just dump it anywhere.

Now, the non-water components of sewage...why aren't we letting algae process them into biofuel?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Because that makes too much sense...

[Sludgy]

Originally Posted by Jay2TheRescue

I think its a cool form of recycling though... Use a bio-waste product like urea, and reduce diesel emissions with it.

Nearly all urea is produced from natural gas.