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Unanswered Questions Surrounding Nitrogen Oxide

About four billion and several million years ago, the earth was born from the infinitesimal particles floating in a rotating cloud of hydrogen and helium. From the beginning of its life, the earth could not maintain the atmosphere around its volume because it lacked its current polarity. The appearance of charged metals in the lithosphere several million years later gave our terrestrial planet the ability to effectively deviate the solar winds emanating from the earth’s atmosphere, thereby holding an atmosphere which is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane, ammonia, etc.

By the beginning of life and photosynthesis on earth, the gas carbon dioxide was beginning to sequestrate in the organic materials such as the live cells of plants, humans, and animals, and a proportion of it as the petroleum resources underground. Humans are now extracting these resources from the earth and returning this sequestrated carbon dioxide to the atmosphere which negatively affects the ecosystem, jeopardizing the life of flora and fauna. The problem of the Khuzestan province is one of these negative impacts of human interventions on the ecosystem which appears as prolonged winds of dust, particles, and tornadoes.

Combustion is one of the main processes for the production of energy from the early history of human civilization on earth. Fire was invented by homo erectus, sanctified in Iran, and is now beginning to play the main part in the baskets of energy worldwide. The turbines, boilers, transportation sectors, automobiles, airplanes, spaceships, etc, are all working thanks to the energy they are receiving from the oxidation of hydrocarbons. However, this process is one of the main destructive energy producers for nature. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, Sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and polycyclic organic hydrocarbons are the products of the combustion that can have a diverse impact on the natural processes occurring on earth.

Nitrogen oxide is one of the most destructive gases that can form during combustion. Nitrogen monoxide is one of those harmful gases that is the building block of other NOx constituents. Nitrogen monoxide is one of the most intriguing molecules humans have ever known. In 1992, Daniel Koshland revealed some of the key roles this molecule plays in body organs, dubbing it the cardiovascular signaling molecule. In human veins, it narrows and widens the wall of cells, thereby controlling blood pressure and contributing to the contraction and expansion of body organs. In the cerebral cortex, it helps to store data from the temporary memory to the permanent one.

However, this gas turns into the one of main atmospheric destructive materials. The gas causes fatal diseases such as cataracts, acute bronchitis, and cancer — nitrogen oxide can deteriorate the natural cycle of life on earth. It is one of the main tropospheric ozone producers, but it destroys the ozone in the stratosphere. The negative impact of this gas endangers the life of species as the former leads to the formation of smog in big cities and the latter leads to accumulation of sunlight in the atmosphere, global warming, as well as making it easier for ultraviolet beams to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere.

Meanwhile, there are various reliable theories regarding the formation of the Earth. Despite gaseous giants like Jupiter, Neptune, galaxies, clusters, etc. and all other governing rules according which these masses are rotating around each other, humans are not still able to identify the rule based on how, by interacting with other molecules, the inanimate molecule turns into life that is able to evolve and reproduce.

These findings are described in the article entitled Analysis of the Formation and Interaction of Nitrogen Oxides in a Rapeseed Methyl Ester Nonpremixed Turbulent Flame, recently published in the journal Energy and Fuels. This work was conducted by Bahamin Bazooyar and Ahmad Shariati from the Petroleum University of Technology, and Abolfazl Jomekian from the Iran University of Science and Technology.

These findings are also described in the article entitled Characterization and Reduction of NO during the Combustion of Biodiesel in a Semi-industrial Boiler, recently published in the journal Energy and Fuels, and the article entitled NOX formation of biodiesel in utility power plant boilers; Part B. Comparison of NO between biodiesel and petrodiesel, recently published in the journal Fuel. This work was conducted by Bahamin Bazooyar and Ahmad Shariati from the Petroleum University of Technology, and Seyed Hassan Hashemabadi from the Iran University of Science and Technology.