Incineration characteristics of typical waste energetic materials and NOx control strategies during incineration

The incineration of waste energetic materials (EMs) produces excessive NOx emissions, posing significant threats to human health and the environment. Consequently, achieving clean treatment for waste EMs presents a major challenge. This study employed thermogravimetric and fixed-bed experiments to investigate the kinetics and NOx emission characteristics of four representative waste EMs: double-base propellant (DP), RDX, TNT, and triple-base propellant (TP). Kinetic analysis revealed that the average activation energies of different waste EMs in the air atmosphere were smaller than that in the corresponding inert atmosphere. There was no clear correlation between fuel-N content and conversion rate of fuel-N to NOx for the four waste EMs. Combined with the general full factorial design (GFFD), the analysis showed that waste EMs type, temperature and oxygen concentration all had significant effects on conversion rate of fuel-N to NOx (P-Value < 0.05), with the order of effect being Type > Temperature > Oxygen Concentration. Increasing temperature and decreasing oxygen concentration contributed to the reduction of NOx emissions. Moreover, at 800°C and 1000°C, NOx emissions gradually increased with rising moisture content. Enlarging temperature could minimize the effect of moisture content on NOx emissions.