What is AdBlue?
Asking yourself, what is add blue? Well add blue is just the common miss spelling of the brand name AdBlue.
So what is AdBlue? AdBlue is a colourless liquid made up of high purity urea and deionised water, and vehicles with SCR technology will have a separate tank filled with it.
Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) is a technique used to clean up diesel emissions. Exhaust gases can be treated with AdBlue to remove harmful pollutants, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), of which nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is the most harmful.
Unlike diesel or petrol it is not injected into the engine,instead it is released into part of the vehicle’s exhaust. When heated in the exhaust, it decomposes into ammonia and CO₂. The NOx from the engine exhaust reacts inside the catalyst with the ammonia and the harmful NOx molecules in the exhaust are converted to harmless nitrogen. In fact, AdBlue® can reduce your NOx emissions by up to 90%!
AdBlue is a registered trademark owned by the German Association of the Automobile Industry (VDA), which ensures standards are maintained.
How Does AdBlue Work?
When combined with SCR technology, AdBlue converts nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from Diesel engines into harmless nitrogen and water vapour non-polluting components already present in the atmosphere.
A THREE-STEP PROCESS:
1/ AdBlue is injected into the exhaust pipe upstream of the SCR catalyst.
2/ Urea, from the AdBlue, breaks down into Ammonia when exposed to hot exhaust gases.
3/ Nitrogen Oxide from the engine is converted to nitrogen (a harmless gas, the main component of the air we breathe) and to water vapour, through the chemical reaction with the Ammonia in the SCR catalyst.
