Mechanism and kinetics of the catalytic oxidation of aqueous ammonia to molecular nitrogen.

Aqueous phase catalytic oxidation of ammonia has been studied over Ru/TiO2 catalyst in a batch reactor by changing the solution pH, concentration of catalyst in the solution, temperature, and reaction time. The oxidation reaction of ammonia over Ru/TiO2 catalyst has been found to take place exclusively for the aqueous NH3 with a preferred mode in strong alkaline pH region. An oxidation reaction pathway has been proposed as follows: Oxidation of ammonia is initiated by the reaction of aqueous ammonia with catalytically activated oxygen. After undergoing further successive oxidation reactions with activated oxygen, ammonia is finally oxidized to a molecule of nitrous acid. Nitrous acid dissociates into a nitrite ion and a proton. The solution pH is decreased with the protons from the dissociation of HNO2 so that the solution concentration of NH4+ is increased. Molecular nitrogen as a final product is produced from the homogeneous aqueous phase reaction between nitrous ion and ammonium ion. Further reaction of nitrous ion with the activated oxygen leads to the formation of nitrate ion. The reaction pathway proposed has been validated with the changes of solution pH along with the ammonia conversions, and the formation of N2 from the solution containing NO2- and NH4+ ions in equimolar amounts of nitrogen has been confirmed in a separate experiment. The kinetics of aqueous ammonia oxidation reaction has been well represented as a first-order reaction with respect to the concentration of aqueous ammonia, and an apparent rate constant has been obtained as a function of catalyst concentration in solution, oxygen pressure, and reaction temperature.