Finnish chemists report on nitrous oxide decomposition in burning biomass

[NNadir]

and waste.

"Modeling emissions of nitrogen oxides from CFB boilers requires, among others, knowledge about kinetics of the most important catalytic nitrogen oxide reactions. One of the catalytic reactions that has extensively been studied in relation to relatively high emission of nitrous oxide is the decomposition of nitrous oxide over solids that compose a bed material in a combustion chamber. Most of these studies were focused on coal combustion, with or without limestone addition, showing that individual components of the bed material have different catalytic activities...

...During recent years, replacement of coal with biomass and biomass-derived fuels has become increasingly important due to growing concerns about global warming. Also, the combustion of various wastes has become an option for solving the problem of landfills as well as for producing electricity. In contrast to the combustion of coals, during the combustion of plant-derived biomass, N2O emissions are usually lower...

...However, there is limited data available in the literature regarding the kinetics of reactions catalyzed by the solids from fluidized bed during combustion of biomass fuels and wastes. Also, there is little information available about the influence of flue gases, for example, water vapor, on the kinetics of catalytic nitrogen oxide reactions. The work presented in this paper is a part of an extensive study on the catalytic activity of bed materials from combustion of biomass fuels and wastes toward N2O decomposition..."

The abstract from Energy and Fuels is found here:

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/enfuem/asap/pdf/ef050110x.pdf