Wet-treatment of exhaust gases

Claim 1

In a process for the aqueous absorption treatment of an exhaust gas to remove simultaneously both oxides of nitrogen (NO x ) and oxides of sulphur (SO x ) from the exhaust gas, wherein the process comprises washing and contacting the exhaust gas with a slurry of lime or limestone, containing an aqueous solution of an alkali metal iodide, alkaline earth metal iodide or mixture of alkali metal iodide and alkaline earth metal iodide, (a) wherein said lime or limestone slurry reacts with (SO x ) thereby removing the sulphur oxides from the exhaust gas and (b) wherein said alkali metal iodide, alkaline earth metal iodide or mixture of alkali metal iodide and alkaline earth metal iodide remove (NO x ) from the exhaust gas; the improvement comprising (1) treating at least a portion of the aqueous solution of alkali metal iodide, alkaline earth metal iodide, or mixture of alkali metal iodide and alkaline metal iodide, after the aqueous solution contacts said exhaust gas in (a) and (b), with an amount of an oxidizing agent selected from the group consisting of chlorine, ozone, hydrogen peroxide, or nitrogen dioxide effective to convert substantially all iodide to iodine, said iodine being in the form of a gas or a solid, (2) separating said iodine from the aqueous solution resulting from treatment with said oxidizing agent and recovering iodine; (3) and further processing said iodine and the separated aqueous solution of (2) (i) by reducing said recovered iodine with an agent selected from the group consisting of sulphurous acid, lime sulphite and mixtures thereof to regenerate iodide, wherein said regenerated iodide is mixed with lime or limestone slurry and recycled for use in (a) and (b) to remove both oxides of nitrogen (NO x ) and oxides of sulphur (SO x ) from said exhaust gas, and (ii) by neutralizing said separated aqueous solution, heating and concentrating said separated aqueous solution by a high temperature exhaust gas before said gas enters an exhaust gas cooling and dusting apparatus to remove impurities comprising NaCl, CaCl 2 , HON(SO 3 ) 2 Ca, [N(SO 3 ) 3 ] 2 Ca 3 or mixures thereof which are contained in the liquid to convert them into solid waste materials.