Mitigation of Pervasive Haber Process Carbon Pollution: Ammonia synthesis from air and water in suspensions of nanoscale Fe/Fe2O3

有了这个奖项，化学系的环境化学科学计划资助乔治华盛顿大学的斯图尔特·利希特教授开发氨生产过程的基础科学，氨是生产化肥的关键原料。 这个过程利用空气、水和阳光，不会产生含碳的副产品。目前，生产氨的哈伯工艺通过化肥生产有效地养活了世界人口;然而，这一过程是能源密集型的，每年向大气中释放2亿多吨二氧化碳。哈伯合成氨的问世使世界人口从1930年的20亿激增到今天的70亿。在这项研究计划中，正在开发一种替代化学工艺，用于从N2，水和热能生产氨。还需要普通材料（熔融氢氧化物、Ni电极）和廉价的纳米级Fe/Fe 2 O3催化剂。更广泛的影响包括培训可再生能源领域的研究生，特别是太阳能合成领域的研究生，该提案旨在探索电解和太阳能合成途径，以生产化肥所急需的氨。Licht研究小组最近发现，这种从大气氮中生产氨的替代化学方法可以在没有二氧化碳的情况下生产氨，并且通过使用纳米级Fe 2 O3悬浮液在熔融氢氧化物中电解，库仑效率高达70%。 该过程在高温下需要很少的能量。利用STEP（太阳能热电化学过程），当热能由太阳光提供时，在不排放任何二氧化碳的情况下产生氨。 该项目旨在通过探索机制和寻求增加过程的活性和优化太阳能耦合来提高对这种新合成途径的基本基础的理解。正在探索水加空气转化为氨的界面电化学，纳米级催化剂的结构正在变化，并将探索太阳能（STEP）氨原型，包括新的太阳能加压路线，以进一步提高太阳能效率。

With this award, the Environmental Chemical Sciences Program of the Division of Chemistry is funding Professor Stuart Licht of George Washington University to develop the fundamental science of a process to produce ammonia, a critical feedstock for the production of fertilizer. This process utilizes air, water and sunlight, without creating carbon-containing byproducts. Currently, the Haber process to produce ammonia effectively feeds the world population through fertilizer production; however, this process is energy intensive, releasing over 200 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. Introduction of Haber synthetic ammonia has paralleled the explosive increase in world population from 2 billion in 1930 to 7 billion today. In this research program, an alternative chemical process is being developed for the production of ammonia from N2, water and thermal energy. Also needed are common materials (molten hydroxide, Ni electrodes) and an inexpensive, nanoscale Fe/Fe2O3 catalyst. The broader impacts include the training of graduate students in the field of renewable energy, specifically in the domain of solar synthesis.This proposal is an effort to explore electrolytic and solar synthetic pathways to produce critically needed ammonia for fertilizer. The recent discovery in the Licht research group of this alternative chemistry for the production of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen produces ammonia without carbon dioxide and at up to 70% coulombic efficiency by electrolysis in molten hydroxide using suspensions of nanoscale Fe2O3. The process requires little energy at high temperature. With STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process), when the thermal energy is provided by sunlight, ammonia is produced without emission of any carbon dioxide. The project seeks to improve understanding of the fundamental basis of this new synthetic pathway to produce ammonia by exploring the mechanism and seeking to increasing the activity of the process and optimize the solar energy coupling. The interfacial electrochemistry of the water plus air conversion to ammonia is being probed, the architecture of nanoscale catalyst is being varied and a solar (STEP) ammonia prototype is to be explored, including a new solar pressurized route, to further increase solar energy efficiency.