Reducing emissions cheaply and efficiently

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg calls Yara's N2O (nitrous oxide) abatement catalyst pellets, environmental "magic bullets."

"Our only chance is to create technology that makes it possible to have economic growth and development and to do it cleanly," he says. The pellet breaks down N2O in the first stage of a nitric acid plant, splitting the gas into nitrogen and oxygen.

Our catalyst can reduce emissions of N2O - which has 310 times the effect of CO2 - by up to 90 percent. The pellets have already reduced Yara's overall annual greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent and more reductions are targeted. If such technology was implemented in all nitric acid plants worldwide, a global reduction of close to 100 million tons of CO2 equivalents a year could be within reach.

Stoltenberg said he was proud to be the prime minister of a country where such technology had been developed. “It shows that it’s possible to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in a good and cost-effective manner,” says Stoltenberg. “What Yara demonstrates with this technology is that we don’t have to choose between economic development and the environment. It’s absolutely possible to combine both.”

Yara has, since the beginning of the 1990s, invested more than NOK 200 million in developing the N2O catalyst technology. Based on cobalt and cerium oxide, the pellet works in the first stage reactor where ammonia is burned in a nitric acid plant. An inexpensive and versatile solution, the pellets are also robust, with a life span of three to five years.

The catalyst has won Norway's prestigious environmental prize The Glass Bear, awarded by the Norwegian Foundation for Sustainable Consumption and Production.