NZ-made product helps diesel trucks to clear the air

Ballance's GoClear can reduce emissions by between 70 and 90 per cent for a typical diesel truck, converting nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and water vapour. Photo / Mark Mitchell

New Zealand fertiliser company Ballance Agri-Nutrients is making a product that helps diesel trucks cut emissions.

GoClear - to be launched tomorrow - is a solution that uses ultra pure urea, produced by Ballance at its Kapuni plant.

Ballance chief executive Larry Bilodeau said the liquid sat in a small tank and was injected into the exhaust system where it reacted with gases as they passed through a converter.

"Instead of the truck emitting nitrogen oxides, a potent greenhouse gas, it changes that into water vapour and nitrogen," Bilodeau said.

"It'll reduce it by anywhere between 70 to 90 per cent of the typical emissions of a truck."

Every tonne of nitrogen oxides reduced in the atmosphere was the equivalent of about 298 tonnes of carbon dioxide, he said.

About one-third of nitrogen oxides emissions came from diesel engines.

"If we can reduce this by between 70 and 90 per cent, that's a big impact."

An increasing number of trucks were using selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology, including some vehicles made by Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Scania, Iveco and Mack.

Ballance said new and used trucks coming into the country would have to meet Euro 5 emission standards from January 1 and bigger trucks would have to use SCR technology to meet this. There was a market for about 750,000 litres of fuel - initially about $500,000 in sales a year - which was expected to grow by 30 per cent annually during the next few years to $3 million to $5 million, Bilodeau said.

"It'll apply to new trucks as they come in so the market will grow as the old trucks get replaced and new ones come in."

The SCR technology cannot be retro-fitted to trucks.

The product was currently imported by two companies, Yara and Orica, which would be supplied by Ballance. "We've got a unique advantage in that we're not shipping it from other parts of the world, we're making it here," he said.

"I think we have capacity to meet 10 times what the market is right now."

Ballance had watched the sector for years and had invested about six months and about $1.5 million to make the product - a good part of which was analytical equipment to make sure it met standards.

The company had been making trial batches and expected to make a product that met specifications within the next couple of weeks.

It was a good margin product for Ballance, which had the country's only urea plant, he said.

"It gives you extra capacity in the plant, it's a nice non-seasonal product so you sell it all year round."

Cleaner exhaust

* Selective Catalytic Reduction allows diesel trucks to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions.

* Uses ultra pure urea.

* Can achieve 70-90 per cent reduction in emissions.

* Previously imported but now made here by Ballance Agri-Nutrients.