Collaborative Research: CAS: Electrochemical Approaches to Sustainable Dinitrogen Fixation

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This award from the Chemical Catalysis (CAT) Program in the Division of Chemistry, supports a collaborative team consisting of Professors Alexander Miller at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Alan Goldman, Frank Felder and Gal Hochman at Rutgers University; and Robert Crabtree, Patrick Holland, and James Mayer at Yale University. The team is designing new ways to convert nitrogen into ammonia. Ammonia is the precursor to many useful materials, including most fertilizers, latex, nylon, explosives and some electrolytes for batteries. Present day methods for making ammonia are energy intensive and rely on fossil fuels as a source of hydrogen. Acting on preliminary results, the team is developing a processes that uses water as the hydrogen source. Atmospheric nitrogen, which comprises ~78% of the air we breathe, is the other feedstock. Key to this work are new molybdenum- and rhenium-based catalysts that cleave atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen atoms. Graduate students receive hands-on training on calculations and laboratory techniques to prepare them for future careers in energy and sustainability. In addition to the laboratory work, the faculty-student teams are working with economists to test the feasibility of diverse approaches to advanced manufacturing. Outreach programs in three states are underway to educate the public about nitrogen fixation. The proposed collaborative research project targets the discovery and mechanistic study of new molecular catalysts for electrochemical N2 reduction. With funding from the Chemical Catalysis Program in the Chemistry Division, Professor Miller of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Professor Goldman, Felder and Hochman of Rutgers University, and Professors Crabtree, Holland, and Mayer of Yale University are developing catalysts capable of electrocatalytic NH3 production via direct N2 splitting to form metal nitride complexes. Detailed studies afford mechanistic insight that is guiding the design of new molybdenum and rhenium complexes and reaction conditions for electrocatalysis. The diversity of systems and methods available through this collaborative approach are being leveraged to generate broadly applicable insights into the properties of transition metal complexes that favor N2 splitting and protonation of nitride intermediates to yield NH3 under conditions amenable to electrocatalysis.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.