Nitrous Oxide from Combustion and Industry: Chemistry, Emissions and Control

Abstract

After an Introductory Part, presenting a survey of the present knowledge of nitrous oxide chemistry related to fossil fuel combustion and flue gas treatment, as a background for the understanding of emission factors, the paper deals successively with the average N2O emission factors from combustion and other industrial sources, and gives guidelines for appropriate N2O control technology ; with respect to the former item, some comments and criticisms on the 1991 OEDC/IPCC Report are formulated. As far as updated emission sources are concerned, emphasis is put on those which presently constitute issues : emissions from fluidized bed combustors, emissions caused by non catalytic selective NO reduction by ammonia and urea injection, N2O emissions caused by the use of automotive three-way catalysts as well as emissions from nitric acid and adipic acid manufacturing and from municipal wastes and sewage sludges incineration. Comments on the 1991 OEDC/IPCC Report mainly emphasize : (1) the surprising absence of emission factors from stationary combustion facilities and the inadequacy of some of the scarcely presented data, (2) the strange ignorance of the important effect of aging of three-way catalysts on the emission of N2O from gasoline vehicles. These omissions are the more surprising since reliable information in these two fields were already available at the period the OEDC Report was issued and or revised. For the assessment of adequate N2O control technologies, there is an urgent need for further R&D work. Presently existing understanding of homogeneous and heterogeneous N2O chemistry may provide interesting hints for N2O control, either by gas phase treatment or by catalytic reduction, depending on the concentration levels present in the off-gases to be treated.