The wet ammonia desulfurization process can be retrofitted for combined removal Of SO2 and NO from the flue gases by adding soluble cobalt(II) salt into the aqueous ammonia solution. Activated carbon is used to catalyze the reduction of hexamminecobalt(III) to hexamminecobalt(II) to maintain the capability of removing NO of the hexamminecobalt solution. The effects of temperature, pH, activated carbon particle size, and superficial liquid flow velocity on hexamminecobalt(III) conversion have been investigated. An apparent activation energy is obtained. According to the experimental results, the catalytic reduction reaction rate increases with temperature. The batch reactor experiments show that the best pH range lies in between 3.5 and 6.5. In a fixed-bed reactor, superficial liquid flow velocity obviously affects the reaction and a high yield of cobalt(II) is obtained at a pH value lower than 9.0. The experiments manifest that the hexamminecobalt solution coupled with catalytic regeneration of hexamminecobalt(II) can maintain a high nitric oxide removal efficiency during a period of time. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.