ABSTRACT -- III-9361773 Lyon A new form of combustion is described which if successful, will be capable of burning natural gas and other fuels which do not contain chemically bound nitrogen without any formation of NOx. The PI proposes to mitigate NOx formation and achieve much higher heat transfer rates especially in boiler applications, by carrying out combustion of natural gas using CuO as the oxidizer. CH4 will be passed over and oxidized by a heated CuO/Alumina bed. The bed is reoxidized back to CuO by air in a separate step and therefore, no direct air/CH4 reactions take place and no NOx can be formed. Furthermore since the energy producing reactions take place on a solid surface rather than in the gas phase, the heat transfer rate is much greater and the combustor can be made much smaller than the usual boiler and fire box. The proposal provides a real practical solution to the problem of NOx emission from combustion systems.
