Decarbonisation and Decentralisation of Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser Production

与水和阳光一样，氮对地球上的植物和生命的生长至关重要。直到20世纪初，农民们还依赖肥料作为一种稀缺商品来丰富他们的庄稼。哈伯-博世工艺使合成氮肥的生产成为可能。农业生产力突飞猛进，粮食变得更容易获得和负担得起。然而，合成氮肥的生产、销售和应用目前占全球二氧化碳当量排放总量的4.4%（2021年为26亿吨二氧化碳当量）。生产严重依赖导致温室气体排放的化石燃料，并且是集中的，而消费则分散在全球。事实上，世界上只有大约200家化肥生产工厂。这些工厂生产的化肥分布在50亿英亩的农业用地上，因此对运输的需求进一步增加了排放。我们必须从根本上改变（一百多年来）给土壤施肥的方式。德拜建议用一种分散的以电力为基础的过程来取代这种集中的碳密集型过程。在这个过程中，农民将不再依赖资源和资本密集型化肥厂以及相关的高成本分销网络，而是利用空气、水和电在现场生产自己的肥料。它具有与可再生能源相结合的优势，使生产完全可持续。该项目旨在展示一种基于等离子体的移动肥料机器的可行性，该机器仅使用空气、水和电，以完全可持续和负担得起的方式生产合成氮肥。

Along with water and sunlight, nitrogen is essential to the growth of plants and life on the planet Earth. Until the early 20th century, farmers were relying on manure as a scarce commodity to enrich their crops. The Haber-Bosch process enabled the production of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Agricultural productivity skyrocketed and food became more available and affordable. However, production, distribution and application of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers now account for 4.4% in total global CO2 equivalent emissions (2.6Gt CO2eq for 2021). Production heavily relies on fossil fuels leading to greenhouse gas emissions and it is centralized, while the consumption is dispersed globally. In fact, there are only about 200 fertiliser manufacturing facilities in the world. The fertilisers made in these facilities are distributed to five billion acres of agricultural land, so the need for transportation further increases emissions.We must fundamentally change the way we have been fertilizing soil (for more than a hundred years). Debye proposes to replace this centralized carbon-intensive process with a decentralized electricity-based one. In this process, farmers would not rely on resource and capital-intensive fertiliser factories and the associated high-cost distribution networks, instead produce their own fertiliser on site by the use of air, water and electricity. It has the advantage of integration with renewable energy making the production completely sustainable. This project aims to show the feasibility of a plasma-based mobile fertiliser machine that produces synthetic nitrogen fertiliser in a completely sustainable and affordable way using only air, water and electricity.