Elkamet urea tanks are an important system component when it comes to meeting diesel exhaust emission regulations. For trucks and buses these are Euro 6 in Europe, and EPA 2010 in the USA; for agricultural and construction equipment and other off-road vehicles Stage IIIB, Stage IV and Stage V in Europe, and Tier 4 final in the USA.
In order to comply with these limits the SCR technology (selective catalytic reduction) is used in the majority of cases; here an aqueous urea solution is metered into the exhaust gas stream. The urea decomposes to ammonia, with which the nitrogen oxides can be reduced on the SCR catalyst.
The urea solution is known in Europe as AdBlue®, in the USA the expression DEF (for diesel emission fluid or diesel exhaust fluid) is generally used.
Due to the strongly corrosive properties of the urea solution urea tanks are generally manufactured using non-corrosive plastics. The only alternative material to this is stainless steel.