Making ammonium nitrate for fertilizers or explosives requires nitric acid and making nitric acid requires making NO and NO2, collectively known as NOx, and N2O .  NOx and N2O are harmful to the environment, NOx because it forms photochemical smog, and N2O, because it has a greenhouse effect equivalent to 300 times its weight of carbon dioxide.

Jord’s solution is to render both NOx and N2O harmless, by passing them through beds of catalysts in packed towers, thereby breaking the molecules down into benign nitrogen and water vapour.  The pollutants in the tail gas from nitric acid plants are thus transformed into gases which are present in the air in even the most pristine environment.

The large reactor vessels used for this service must be carefully designed and manufactured, as they need to withstand extreme heat and pressure conditions (over 400 deg C and 600 kPa).  Correctly operated and maintained the catalyst lasts a very long time.  In fact many of Jord’s DeNOx systems with this type of catalyst have been in service for the life of the nitric acid plant they service.