Recent progress towards the electrosynthesis of ammonia from sustainable resources
Recent progress towards the electrosynthesis of ammonia from sustainable resources
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cattod.2016.05.008
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发表时间：
2017-05-15
期刊：
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Symes, Mark D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Shipman, Michael A.;Symes, Mark D.
氨（NH3）是一种对化肥至关重要的关键化学品。它是通过哈伯-博世工艺在工业规模上制造的，该工艺需要大量的基础设施，使得氨通常在大型集中设施中制造。如果可以在要求较低的条件下生产氨，那么就有可能使用较小的装置以分散的方式生产氨，供当地消费。电化学已经被提出作为用于此目的的使能技术，因为它相对简单地缩放电解装置以满足几乎任何水平的需求。此外，可以设想电合成电池，其中水可以被氧化以在阳极处产生质子和电子，质子和电子然后可以用于还原氮并使氮质子化以在阴极处产生氨。如果这些氮来自空气，那么这个过程所需的唯一基础设施将是水，空气和电力供应，后者可以由可再生能源提供。因此，用于氨生产的电合成电池可以允许在仅需要最少设施的小型低成本设备中可持续地产生NH3。在这篇综述中，我们描述了这种电合成氨生产装置的最新进展，并总结了该领域的一些开创性文献。已经采取的各种不同的方法之间的比较，并在电合成氨的关键剩余的挑战突出。(C)2016爱思唯尔B. V.保留所有权利。
Ammonia (NH3) is a key commodity chemical of vital importance for fertilisers. It is made on an industrial scale via the Haber Bosch process, which requires significant infrastructure to be in place such that ammonia is generally made in large, centralized facilities. If ammonia could be produced under less demanding conditions, then there would be the potential for smaller devices to be used to generate ammonia in a decentralized manner for local consumption. Electrochemistry has been proposed as an enabling technology for this purpose as it is relatively simple to scale electrolytic devices to meet almost any level of demand. Moreover, it is possible to envisage electrosynthetic cells where water could be oxidised to produce protons and electrons at the anode which could then be used to reduce and protonate nitrogen to give ammonia at the cathode. If this nitrogen were sourced from the air, then the only required infrastructure for this process would be supplies of water, air and electricity, the latter of which could be provided by renewables. Hence an electrosynthetic cell for ammonia production could allow NH3 to be generated sustainably in small, low-cost devices requiring only minimal facilities. In this review, we describe recent progress towards such electrosynthetic ammonia production devices, summarizing also some of the seminal literature in the field. Comparison is made between the various different approaches that have been taken, and the key remaining challenges in the electrosynthesis of ammonia are highlighted. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.