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Laughing gas is no joke—and it’s also a greenhouse gas. Now Japanese
company Asahi Kasei wants to fight global warming with a new energy-efficient
way of breaking down waste nitrous oxide from chemical plants (EP 1 040 862).
Heat N₂O and it breaks down—so Asahi splits a stream of
N₂O gas into two sub-streams, and heats one over a catalyst. This breaks
that stream down exothermically, creating enough heat to break down the other
stream as well. The entire reaction then becomes self-sustaining, and needs no
more heating.