Decarbonisation and Decentralisation of Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser Production

沿着水和阳光，氮对地球上的植物和生命的生长至关重要。直到世纪初，农民们还依赖粪肥作为一种稀缺商品来丰富他们的作物。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、分销及应用目前占全球二氧化碳当量排放总量的4. 4%（二零二一年为2. 6千兆吨二氧化碳当量）。生产严重依赖化石燃料，导致温室气体排放，并且是集中的，而消费则分散在全球。事实上，全世界只有大约200家化肥制造厂。这些设施生产的肥料被分配到50亿英亩的农业用地上，因此运输的需要进一步增加了排放。我们必须从根本上改变我们种植土壤的方式（一百多年来）。德拜建议用一个分散的基于电力的过程来取代这种集中的碳密集型过程。在这一过程中，农民将不再依赖资源和资本密集型的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化肥。它具有与可再生能源集成的优势，使生产完全可持续。该项目旨在展示基于等离子体的移动的肥料机的可行性，该肥料机仅使用空气、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.