Jatropha curcas is considered a promising energy crop. The response surface methodology is introduced to study the combustion performance of pelletized Jatropha seed residue in a vortexing fluidized-bed combustor, and regression models for the bed temperature (T-b), the combustion fraction (Y-b), and the NOx emissions are provided. The result shows that the combustion efficiency is above 99.5%, indicating that JSR pellets burn very well in the combustor. CO can be eliminated by stage combustion accompanied by a controlled freeboard temperature, but NOx increases correspondingly. T-b and Y-b have similar trends, showing the interaction between them. The variation in the NOx emissions can be attributed to the shift in volatile-N combustion. In summary, the optimum operating conditions lie slightly above the line of T-b equal to 800 degrees C.