Atom economy and green elimination of nitric oxide using ZrN powders

Nitric oxide (NO) may cause serious environmental problems, such as acid rain, haze weather, global warming and even death. Herein, a new low-cost, highly efficient and green method for the elimination of NO using zirconium nitride (ZrN) is reported for the first time, which does not produce any waste or any by-product. Relevant experimental parameters, such as reaction temperature and gas concentration, were investigated to explore the reaction mechanism. Interestingly, NO can be easily decomposed into nitrogen (N(2)) by ZrN powders at 600°C with ZrN simultaneously transformed into zirconium dioxide (ZrO(2)) gradually. The time for the complete conversion of NO into N(2) was approximately 14 h over 0.5 g of ZrN at a NO concentration of 500 ppm. This green elimination process of NO demonstrated good atom economy and practical significance in mitigating environmental problems.