Recently, thyssenkrupp Uhde successfully commissioned its 35th EnviNOx® system, a patented technology for the reduction of nitrous oxide emissions which reduces these greenhouse gases close to zero. The process converts environmentally harmful nitrous oxide, i.e. laughing gas (N2O) and other nitrogen oxides into nitrogen, oxygen and water. At the latest installation for Arxada in Switzerland, annual emissions of laughing gas will be reduced by at least 98%, saving up to 600,000 tons of CO2-equivalents per year. This is a significant contribution to the country’s climate targets.
“The whole chemical industry faces the challenge of protecting the climate while growing profitably. With the realization of emission reduction solutions such as EnviNOx®, we are really making an impact”, says Sami Pelkonen, CEO thyssenkrupp Uhde. “We focus on the development of sustainable solutions to make existing and new plants as environment-friendly as possible – up to completely climate-neutral chemicals such as green ammonia.”
More than 200 million tons of CO2-equivalents saved in total
The EnviNOx® technology was originally developed for emission reduction in nitric acid plants and has already been installed in 35 chemical plants worldwide since the first installation in 2003. More EnviNOx® systems are already ordered from various customers and will be installed and commissioned during the next months. Since 1 kg of N2O in the atmosphere has the same impact on global warming as 265 kg of CO2 the currently reduced N2O emissions of all installed EnviNOx® systems worldwide are equivalent to 16 million tons of CO2 per year. For comparison: This is about the annual CO2 emissions of over 9400 small passenger cars. The so far reduced emissions cumulate to more than 200 million tons of CO2-equivalents, which is over 25% of Germany’s yearly CO2 emissions.
